


Guardian of the Peace

by Mother_of_Monsters



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: American!John, Future AU, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 08:54:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/648822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mother_of_Monsters/pseuds/Mother_of_Monsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the world still fresh from the last World War, Sherlock Holmes may be all that stands in the way of a certain mastermind who wants nothing more than to watch the tentative peace dissolve into chaos. Fortunately for Holmes, his new Defender is determined to make sure that in the end, Sherlock will come out on top.</p><p>**Please do not redistribute my works to other sites such as goodreads or ebookstree without my express permission**</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Conundrums of a Different Color

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! Welcome to my new AU Sherlock story! I'm hoping to update this story at least once a week, if I can, so keep your eyes peeled! Thanks for reading!
> 
> Rated E for John Watson's future potty mouth, Violence, and slash.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, or any of the characters herein. I bow before the talented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss, and Steven Moffat for the privilege of borrowing their characters for a bit of fun. Thank you, gentlemen, for sharing them with the world.

With World War 3 over and done with, the Persian Land Conflict in full swing, Mycroft Holmes, head of Defense for the Afro-European Coalition, had more things to worry about than keeping an eye on his wayward little brother. Hell, even without the miniature land war currently ravaging the New Persian Empire he would have had more than enough to occupy himself. However, his brother's safety took precedence over matters of state, regardless of what his bosses thought.

The door of his office swung open to admit his personal assistant, laden with his morning tray of tea and a plate of fried eggs and toast. She placed the tray precisely in the middle of his desk blotter, then pulled her datalet out from under her arm. With a tap of her stylus, no doubt pulling up her morning report.

"Good morning, Mr Holmes," she said demurely. "A new possible treaty has been put forth by the Ru-Asian Alliance in regards to the Persian Conflict. I have taken the liberty of forwarding it to your business email account. The Austro-Pacific Collective has sent us a peace-offering in the form of several documents explaining their new research into Cybernetic technology. The American Legion has also sent us several documents, though more in the spirit of scientific curiosity than the interest of peace. I took the liberty of forwarding one of them to your business account as well as Research and Development, because it pertains to new breakthroughs in Genetic Manipulation."

Mycroft held up a hand to pause her speech. "Genetic Manipulation?"

"Yes, Sir. The American Legion boasts some new successes in their now in-progress 'Super Soldier' initiative." She wrinkled her nose at the unoriginal project title. "There are currently seven new ten-man units of 'Gen-A', or Genetically Anomalous, soldiers being deployed to Afghanistan to join in the conflict."

"Interesting." He tapped a finger against his chin, then nodded decisively. "Make sure you keep up to date on that. Message our Ambassador in South America if you must."

Nodding in answer, she made a quick note on her screen, then continued, "That concludes the international part of my report. In regards to the Homefront, I have only two things of note to be mentioned, both of which unfortunately pertain to your brother."

Sighing in exasperation, Mr Holmes shook his head slightly and motioned for her to continue.

"The first, Sir, is that Master Holmes has finally managed to solve our present spy problem. Provost Marshal Gregson has arrested twelve New Persian and Ru-Asian operatives in London, Sussex, and Cambridge. He does, however, assure us that the case is not so much 'solved' as it is 'curbed for the time being'."

"Make a note to send him fruit basket, and remember to sign it 'Sincerely - The Commonwealth'."

Her smirk of understanding made the corner of his mouth twitch in amusement. She continued, "Yes, Sir. The second note is of a more personal nature. Your brother's Defender has vowed never to work with him again."

Groaning softly, Mycroft reached up with one hand to massage his temples. "That is the fourth man this month."

"Yes, Sir. I should also warn you, because of Mr Stinton's rather large mouth, none of the other agents in our employ wish to take the position."

"Hell."

"Indeed, Sir."

In lieu of cursing, he lifted his fork and stabbed dolefully at his eggs. If there was one thing Mycroft hated, it was a problem without a quick resolution. Sherlock, in this case, was the problem, and there was no chance of a solution at all. How could you possibly solve a problem in the form of your own, dear brother?

"Send our four most competent and least friendly agents to watch over my brother's flat, and tell all the Provost Marshals that they shall have to live without Sherlock's expertise. That should provide us at least a good month before a decision can be made."

"Yes, Sir. Shall I authorise the use of physical force?"

"God, yes. Just tell them not to do any permanent damage?"

"I doubt they would anyway, Sir. Most of the men would rather die than suffer any fate you might have in mind for them if they did." Tapping on her screen, she made another note and then inserted the stylus back into the casing of her datalet. "In closing, Sir, I have chosen the name of Elizabeth for today. With your permission, my I take my leave?"

"Thank you, Elizabeth, yes. Consider yourself dismissed."

With a short bow of deference, the newly dubbed 'Elizabeth' turned on her heel and exited the office without a backward glance. Mycroft took a sip of tea and a bite of his breakfast, then switched on his own datalet to get down to the business of making peace. Sherlock would have to wait, for now.

`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.

The business of making peace is not really one of Mycroft's strong suits. He much prefers forcing peace through subterfuge, if he can help it, because simply writing up a treaty often leaves too much to others' interpretation. He's the kind of man who likes to hold all the decks, let alone the cards, and who pays off the dealers under the table to pass him all the best tips on his opponents.

This is the major reason that he has next to no control over his little brother. Sherlock Holmes is not the sort of man to be controlled by such mediocre things as subterfuge. He simply does not do things like 'emotional blackmail' or 'forced rehabilitation'. Trying to control Sherlock is like trying to tame a bear while dressed in a salmon suit; it just gets you mauled in the end.

The agents of England's Homefront are well aware of this. All of them, even in one-on-one interviews with Mycroft Holmes himself, have refused to take on the vacant position of Defender. None of them, even under the threat of emotional, physical, and mental blackmail and abuse, will budge on this issue.

It took Mycroft nearly a year to go through all of them, some of them multiple times, and he had even gone through the ranks of the Provosts in order to find someone, anyone, who will accept the position. He found himself completely unsuccessful in the endeavor (though not in the subsequent cultivation of a stomach ulcer). With despair setting in, he had resigned himself from ever finding someone to take on the moniker of Defender and save his younger brother from the self-destructive spiral the man had been on since birth.

It is the knowledge of this desperation that sends his loyal PA out to snatch up a young doctor by the name of Mike Stamford, and bring him and a fat manila folder back to the office. 'Anthea' (as she had dubbed herself for the week) had assured her boss that Dr Stamford was considered 'tolerable in small doses' by the younger Holmes, and had in his possession a personal file that might in fact be the answer to the 'Sherlock Conundrum'. Mycroft could only hope that it was true.

Dr Stamford was a pudgy, congenial sort of person with moderate intelligence. Mycroft had a small file constructed on the man when Sherlock had first been known to speak to him. It held no disparaging remarks, and there was nothing in his past or present that involved illicit activities. Mr Holmes was, therefore, just desperate and willing enough to listen to any advice the man might have had on a possible Defender for his brother.

Anthea had to give the doctor a firm shove to the back when they entered the office. Stamford looked much like a mouse caught by a starving cat, and Mycroft did nothing at all to change that. He waited until the office door swung shut behind his assistant before speaking.

"Dr Stamford, I hear you are described as 'tolerable' by one, Sherlock Holmes. That is high praise coming from him."

Mike nodded in a nervous way and fiddled with the edge of the fat manilla folder in his hands. "Thank you, Mr Holmes. I didn't know Sherlock actually liked me."

"Do not be fooled, Doctor. Sherlock does not 'like' anyone."

"Oh. Of course. Yes."

Mycroft took a moment to pour himself and his guest a cup of tea. "You are aware, of course, that my brother has been without a Defender for nearly a year?"

"Yes, Mr Holmes, Sir." Mike took a careful sip of tea, even though his hand shook considerably. "It was one of the reasons I answered the memorandum in the departmental newsletter."

"You have a possible candidate in mind?"

"Yes, Sir." The manila folder was carefully placed on the desk between them. "My hospital, as you probably know, has been accepting new hires this week. I had the pleasure of meeting one of those who were rejected at a corporate event run by my wife's firm. She works with another secretary by the name of Harriet Watson. Nice girl, if she could stay off the bottle." Mike's smile quivered under Mycroft's 'get-to-the-point' gaze. "Well, her brother is a veteran, recently returned from Afghanistan if you can believe it. Wounded, poor man. She brought him as her date to the event, you see."

In spite of his company's nearly inane chatter, Mycroft felt a modicum of interest in the folder. Flipping it open to find a rather long resume, he asked, "Why would I be interested in a man who was rejected for a position in the hospital?"

"Well, as you can see he wasn't rejected because of his résumé. The hospital board rejected him because he's an American Gen-A soldier."

One of Mycroft's perfectly manicured eyebrows rose up in surprise. He held up a hand for silence, and turned his attention to the folder before him. Ever since his PA had first brought the American project to his attention, he had been overwhelmed with both curiosity and a twinge of horror. Here in his hands was proof positive that the Americans had been successful in their endeavour to play God.

The man's CV was, indeed, impressive. There was a full list of commendations, from certificates to medals, for bravery, courage, and duty. His job description was listed as 'Combat Medic', and following it was a number of military ratings (all exemplary) in various medical particulars, including surgery and general practise. It was the final page that listed the man's genetic manipulations that captured Mycroft's focus.

When he finished reading, Mr Holmes asked, "You said you have personally met the man?"

"Yes, Sir."

"And?"

Stamford dithered for a moment, twiddling his thumbs in thought, before offering, "Well, he's a quiet sort of person, John is. Actually, I've had lunch with him a few times. He's not nearly as intelligent as Sherlock, of course, but then again who is, eh? Smart enough though, and he speaks well when he speaks at all."

"Why do you think he might be suitable for the position of Sherlock's Defender?"

Frowning, the doctor was silent in thought for a long moment. Finally, he ventured, "John's the sort of bloke you can't help but like, trust even. Also, he's a Gen-A, so of course you know Sherlock's going to be interested in observing him at least. Not to mention, trying to shock John is nearly impossible. He takes everything in stride. In fact, John might be the most patient person I have ever had the pleasure to meet, and if there's one thing that people need when dealing with Sherlock it's patience." Mike was quiet for a further second before shrugging his shoulders. "I don't know, Sir, but something just tells me that John will be good for Sherlock."

The doctor seemed so sincere, Mycroft actually felt a twinge of hope spring up in his mind. "Well, Dr Stamford, I thank you for your input. I wonder, would you mind telling my assistant where she might find this 'Dr John Watson'?"

"Certainly, Mr Holmes, Sir."

"Thank you. You may go."

While Stamford nervously tripped his way out the door, Mycroft hefted the folder in his hands and began to leaf through it again. When the office door opened, he did not even bother waiting until his assistant was all the way inside before ordering, "Anthea, fetch this Dr Watson here immediately."

The door closed behind her without further comment, and he turned his attention to his datalet. Within half an hour, he had several glowing recommendations from Watson's former teachers, his superior officers, his therapist, and several of his brothers-in-arms. Texting Anthea to make sure Watson was presentable, and therefore buying himself a bit of time, he set to reading.

Between the obvious embellishments, Watson was revealed to be a very down-to-earth sort of person with a stubborn streak that would make a donkey weep with pride. There was a formidable temper hidden beneath an almost saint-like patience, and a protective instinct towards those deemed in his charge. It was the therapist's notes that caught his eye in the end; they mentioned trust issues and the possibility that he might suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

His office door opened once again to reveal the man in question, and Mycroft clasped his hands together over the file in contemplation. John Watson was barely average height for an Englishman, perhaps 5'7", with cropped ash-blonde hair and skin tanned to the color of freshly baked bread. Dark blue eyes reminiscent of those of a snow leopard were set in an expressive face, which some might have considered 'boyishly handsome'.

He wore an ill-fitting business suit of a nondescript shade of brown, a plain blue tie, and dress shoes that might have seen better days. Mycroft didn't even want to guess what the man deemed as a wardrobe if this was the sort of thing he wore to potential job interviews. At least his stance, a military sharp parade rest, proclaimed a hint of the training beneath the department store fabric.

"Doctor Watson, I presume." Mycroft stood to his full height before offering the seat before his desk with a wave of his hand. "I am Mycroft Holmes, Head of Defense for England's Homefront and the Military of the Afro-European Coalition. Please, be seated."

Doctor Watson inclined his head respectfully before sitting stiffly in the chair that was indicated. Once Mycroft had settled himself, the doctor said softly, "You know, most people just would have called me, instead of, how did she put it, 'insisting on my cooperation'."

The man's accent was soft, barely noticeable, but whether that was by design or simply schooling, Mycroft did not truly care. Allowing one of his eyebrows to rise, he otherwise ignored the words and instead stated, "I have been reliably informed by a gentleman by the name of Doctor Mike Stamford that you are in need of employment."

"Ok."

When John spoke no further, Mycroft continued, "It is most unfortunate that the local hospitals and surgeries are reluctant to hire an American Veteran with," Mycroft sniffed and lifted up his datalet, "Post traumatic stress disorder, trust issues, and a myriad of genetic manipulations."

Dr Watson's dark eyes darted to the upturned screen and back to Mycroft's paler ones. A muscle in his strong jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth. "Nice to know  _someone'_ s been talking to my therapist."

"Indeed." Laying his screen down flat again, Mycroft elegantly clasped his hands together before him. "I wish to tell you, frankly, that none of these things matter to me, although your genetic make-up is, shall we say, rather intriguing."

The doctor's head tilted to the side, but he did not speak.

"What matters to me, Doctor Watson, is your service record and training." Nodding his head towards the folder still before him, Mycroft settled a pleasant look over his features. "There is an occupation open here in which I feel you may, in fact, be well-qualified for."

Surprised, Watson's eyes widened and his eyebrows lifted. Then, his expression shifted into one of cautious interest. "What sort of 'occupation'?"

"Defender for my younger brother, Master Sherlock Holmes."

"I've never heard of that before." Watson was looking at him almost side-long now, as if debating whether to flee the room.

Mycroft gave him a sardonic smile, "My brother occupies a position of his own design, wherein he is free to follow his own pursuits under the guise of consulting with the Homefront Provosts. Occasionally he also performs tasks for me, but such times are few and far between. As both of these undertakings usually involve threats to his physical well-being, I created the special post in order to secure him a personal bodyguard."

After a moment of contemplation, the doctor licked his lips and asked, "What exactly does this post entail?"

Mycroft settled back in his chair, "You would take up lodgings within my brother's flat, and attempt to keep him safe from the various threats to his health and well-being that occur with alarming frequency during his daily life. Even when he is not on a case with the Provosts, there are still very real criminal threats to his person. You may also be required to act as a field medic depending on the situation. Finally, you would be responsible for typing up a weekly report and a case-length report of Sherlock's activities."

"So, basically, I'd be a live-in, military-trained babysitter?"

Mycroft was saved from having to rebut that statement by Sherlock himself, who chose that very moment to burst into the room. The younger man nearly flew to the desk and slammed his hands against the mahogany. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Mycroft? How many times have I explained to you that I do not need a bloody nanny?"

God, but Mycroft could have wept as Sherlock began to rant and rave about his independence. He could practically feel the hope drain away as Sherlock did nothing more than be his usual, abrasive self. As he attempted to throw an apologetic glance at his once-potential hire, he resigned himself to possibly forcing Sherlock into a home for the mentally ill.

To his surprise, John Watson was looking up at Sherlock with an odd sort of expression that seemed to be a mix of surprise, awe, confusion, disbelief, and possibly (Could it be?) interest. When Sherlock finally acknowledge that there was someone else besides his brother in the room, he paused just long enough to rake his gaze over the other man before continuing his speech. Finally, as Sherlock seemed to wind down, Watson shifted a bit in his seat and tapped his battered datalet against the desk once for attention.

"Should I just go?"

As soon as Sherlock's attention actually focused on the American, Mycroft mentally threw up his arms in vexation. He knew the look in his younger brother's eyes, and it boded very ill for the soldier. The last glimmer of hope died away as Sherlock opened his unstoppable, unfiltered mouth.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?"

The doctor looked slightly taken aback, "What?"

"Where did you serve, you imbecile? Everything about you practically screams military, and judging by the faint tan lines around your wrists and neck you've been abroad recently. There are only two countries to which soldiers are deployed these days, therefore, Afghanistan or Iraq?"

"Afghanistan. How did you..."

"Now let's talk about this," Sherlock lifted the man's datalet from his hands and spun it around deftly. "What should we discuss first? The fact that it's a hand-me-down since you've only just returned from combat, the inscription on the back, or that its previous owner is a drunk?"

Mycroft closed his eyes in embarrassment. Now Sherlock would take the man apart, insult him beyond belief, and then Watson would surely run. Nothing like a little brother to ruin your day.

"Let's start with the inscription, shall we? Three x's means three kisses, so obviously it was given to 'Harry' by 'Clara' as a gift of the romantic persuasion. They must have broken up at this point, seeing as Harry has just given it to you. If she had broken it off he would have kept it, people are sentimental like that, so obviously he left her. Now perhaps I should mention the scuff marks around the power connection? You never see those kind of scratches on a sober man's datalet, and you never see a drunk's without them."

A smug grin on his face, Sherlock tossed the datalet back into Dr Watson's hands and clapped once. Mycroft opened his eyes and gave an almost pleading look at his guest. Both Holmes brothers momentarily held their breath.

"That," Watson stared at the screen in his hands for a full thirty seconds before raising his eyes to meet Sherlock's, "was extraordinary."

Mycroft's mouth fell open at the same time that Sherlock uttered a confused, "What?"

"It was extraordinary. I mean, nobody told you about Harry's drinking habits?"

"No," Sherlock swallowed suddenly, "no one told me anything about you."

"Jesus."

In order to maintain some sense of decorum, Mycroft quietly closed his mouth and cast his gaze between the two men now staring at one another. Sherlock cleared his throat softly, "You know, 'extraordinary' isn't what people usually say."

"What do they say?" John asked.

A nervous sort of expression appeared on Sherlock's face, "Piss off."

Shock was not a strong enough word to describe the way Mycroft felt when John Watson grinned at that, and Sherlock's response to said expression was an almost shy smirk. Watson rose out of his seat and fixed his gaze on the elder Holmes brother, "There are worse jobs out there, I guess."

Both brothers looked completely taken aback, but Mycroft managed to pull himself together and stand up himself. "You can start tomorrow if that is convenient? I shall have Anthea text you the address of your new lodgings tonight."

Nodding, John reached out a hand to Sherlock, who stared at the offered appendage in confusion before shaking it firmly. The Holmes men stared at the soldier's back as he walked to the office door. Just before he exited, the doctor glanced over his shoulder at Sherlock.

"By the way, Harry is short for Harriet."

The door shut, thankfully, before Mycroft turned to see the completely stunned look on his brother's face. It wouldn't do to have the rest of the office see their boss laughing as if all his Christmases had just come early. Sherlock didn't even seem to register the sound.


	2. Unwelcome, But Surprisingly Appreciated

Sherlock was never really sure how he made it back to his flat after he left Mycroft's office. All he remembered was giving his brother the two-fingered salute over his shoulder and exiting the building. The next thing he knew, he was standing inside the front door of his flat, staring at the stairwell.

His landlady, Mrs Hudson, came scuffling out of her own apartment, a smile on her cheery old face. "Welcome back, Sherlock dear. How did it go?"

"I have a new Defender. We should expect him tomorrow," he answered flatly.

"Oh! But I thought you were going to finally tell your brother off?"

"I did. His prospective new hire was already there. I deduced him." He rested his foot on the bottom stair.

Mrs Hudson gave him a soft look of commiseration. "Sherlock, you didn't! What did he do?"

The sideways glance he gave her was full of confusion, "He said it was 'extraordinary'."

Her gasp of surprise chased him up the stairs and into his chaotic flat. Really, he couldn't blame her for being surprised. He was pretty sure he was surprised himself.

He had never purposefully deduced someone only to have them compliment him. Usually, they just threw ridiculous insults at him, and occasionally resorted to punching him in the face. The new Defender had done neither of those things, had done the complete opposite in fact, and had even corrected one of his intuitive leaps before absconding.

"Sister," he mumbled to himself. "It's always something."

Somewhere in the mess of papers on his desk, his datalet beeped forlornly. Stripping off his suit jacket, Sherlock stepped gracefully around the piles of scientific detritis that littered the floor until he could shuffle through the scribbled-upon sheets and lift it up. He frowned at it, unhappy at himself for leaving such a valuable tool behind and at the message indicator flashing his hated brother's name.

The message contained a short version of his new babysitter's CV, which he refused to peruse, at least until he noted the highlighted acronymn 'Gen-A' under the listing of 'enhancements'. Most soldiers, AEC or otherwise, had 'cybernetic' listed there, so finding an unfamiliar notation piqued his interest.

Tapping on the note, a new file opened and his eyes widened at the title: Genetic Anomolies. There was a listing of animals that followed, and after each was a notation of the genes that had been selected to be integrated into the man's genetic code and an expected outcome. There was even a step-by-step procedure listed on how the manipulations had been accomplished.

A frightening smile began to overtake Sherlock's face as he drank in the words and charts. The sheer volume of possible experiments that he could perform with this new Defender was staggering! There was everything from enhanced sense of smell, through seeing in the dark!

One line in particular caught his considerable interest - 'Electrophorus electricus (DFB, electroreception). A quick internet search revealed the unscientific name of the animal as 'electric eel'. Sherlock mentally rubbed his hands together and pulled out a relatively empty notebook and began to frantically scribble experiment ideas as fast as his mind could generate them.

The first task, as far as he was concerned, was to learn every possible limit of his new bodyguard's abilities. The second, was to make the man feel just unwelcome and uncomfortable enough to make it easy to push him over the edge, thus getting the man fired or to quit. His last task was to make sure that Mycroft never foisted someone upon him again.

There wasn't much he could do about the experiments with the man still not in the flat. He could start on the 'make him uncomfortable/unwelcome' part of the plan though. Lifting up his datalet again, he swiftly selected a call number and dialed.

He barely waited for the person on the other end of the line to greet him before he snapped, "I'm going to need you to put a pair of lungs, ten fingers, and a liver in a cooler; if you could find a severed head as well I'd be grateful. If you could get those ready for me, Molly, I'll be by in an hour?"

Without giving her a chance to reply, he rang off. Smiling smugly, he set about creating the biggest mess he could manage without messing up his perilous stack-like filing system. One of Sherlock's many abilities was knowning how to arrange a bit of organized chaos in a short amount of time, and he set about doing it with relish.

`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.

Doctor John Watson arrived at 221B Baker Street with 2 full duffle bags, a pair of medium sized cardboard boxes, and no fanfare at all. Sherlock only noticed his arrival because of the sound of footsteps plodding up the stairs. Opening his eyes, Sherlock observed from his comfortable position on the leather sofa as his new Defender took in the chaos of the living room.

Glancing over the books, papers, and various pieces of science equipment strewn about, Dr Watson merely lifted a curious eyebrow in lieu of questioning. Sherlock smirked devilishly, simply stating, "Your bedroom is up the stairs. If you like I can have Mycroft send someone to collect the rest of your things tomorrow."

The Defender's brow wrinkled slightly and he shifted uncomfortably on his feet, "These  _are_  all my things."

Sherlock raised a single eyebrow, but did not speak further. It seemed Watson decided to take that as a dismissal, as he turned and slowly made his way up the second set of stairs without further comment. Listening to the sound of his new flatmate settling in, Sherlock let his eyes fall shut again as he mulled over their first real exchange.

Though distinctly American, John's accent was actually rather soft, as if he spoke each word deliberately. His voice was pleasant, pitched toward the low end of the tenor scale, and probably had a soothing effect on his patients. Sherlock would likely get used to the sound after a while, and Dr Watson would hopefully continue to keep the flat sound of American vowels and the rough sound of American consonants as tightly under control as possible.

Slitting his eyes open, he watched as his new arrival returned to the living room and began to slowly make his way around the flat. At first, the consulting detective thought it was because the Defender was trying to avoid the mess, but then he realized that the doctor was actually pacing out the layout of the place. When he paused in the doorway of the kitchen, Sherlock waited for the inevitable questions about the makeshift laboratory and experiments that had taken over the table and counters.

When none came, he wasn't sure if he should be disappointed or not. Surely the man must have been curious? Sherlock sat up straighter and opened his eyes fully as the doctor returned to the room.

Watson was clad in comfortable clothing - worn jeans, moccasin slippers, and a dark gray sweatshirt with the faded words 'Semper Fi' beneath the silhouette of an eagle. It was a big improvement from the horrible suit he'd worn to the interview. His current outfit would give the illusion, to someone without Sherlock's observational skills anyway, that the doctor was completely harmless.

Dark blue eyes alighted on the mantle, and Sherlock carefully hid his shock at the boyish smirk that graced the ex-soldier's face. "Nice skull."

Involuntarily, Sherlock returned the smirk, "Old friend. Of a sort."

"So," Dr Watson slid into a parade-rest stance, probably out of habit, "I suppose now would be a good time to discuss your schedule?"

"I don't have one. I take interesting cases when I can, visit the morgue or the lab at Bart's occasionally, and experiment here when I'm not doing any of those things."

Watson hummed in acknowledgement as his eyes carefully traced the entirety of the living room. "Is there some sort of filing system I should worry about stepping on?"

"No. But I would prefer you leave everything as it is."

"Very well." As if that settled it, the doctor once again began walking around the room.

Leaning forward until his elbows rested on his knees, Sherlock placed his hands in a prayer-like position before his lips and observed. Watson prowled around the living room, often glancing between the windows and the furnishings, and it clicked in Sherlock's mind that he was judging the lines of sight. He also didn't seem put off by the detective's constant stare.

He was behaving far more professionally in those first few minutes than many of the others had displayed in their first few days. Since Sherlock was not a trusting man, he instead allowed himself to feel a modicum of respect for the doctor. At least the man knew his trade.

Sherlock's datalet pinged loudly in the silence, and instead of lifting it off the table, he held out a hand and commanded, "Defender? My datalet."

There was a long moment of utter stillness, in which both men held the other with their stare. Dr Watson furrowed his brow slightly and, without breaking the gaze, lifted the object from its resting place. He didn't let go after he had placed it in Sherlock's palm.

"I will answer to 'John', 'Watson', 'doctor', or 'Dr Watson'. Anything else is just white noise."

"Your name doesn't matter, you'll be gone as soon as I'm finished learning all I can from you." Sherlock waved a hand dismissively, and was pleased to note with his peripheral vision that the doctor's brows had drawn together suspiciously. With a tap to the screen, the datalet sprang to life revealing a single message:  **U were right. Found 4th. Coming 2 get u now - GL**

**Don't bother. Text me the address. I'll come to you. -SH**

"It seems my presence is required at a crime scene. Be a good man and go fetch us a cab while I get my coat." Popping up off the sofa, Sherlock strode into his bedroom without a second glance.

Snatching a scarf out of his drawer, he took a moment to read the address Lestrade sent him off his screen and committed it to memory. Tugging on a suit jacket, Sherlock checked to make sure his appearance was as impeccable as ever, then slipped back out into the living room.

In the doorway of the stairwell, Watson leaned against the banister with an almost bored expression on his face. The sweatshirt had been exchanged for a dark green turtleneck sweater, and a worn donkey jacket was zipped up over that. It looked suitably professional, but still ordinary, and it was hard to guess if the doctor was presenting himself that way or if that was just his style.

Frowning, Sherlock crossed his arms over his chest as he filled the doorway with his tall frame. "Did I not order you to get us a cab?"

John didn't answer verbally, didn't even glance at his charge. Without making very much noise at all, he pulled something from his pocket and lifted it in the air just above his shoulder. Dangling from his thumb and pointer finger was a blue and white spiral wristband, attached to which was a single key, a fob, and a charm shaped like a little blue telephone box.

"You have a car?" Sherlock inquired. He received a nod for his question. Sneering, Sherlock bounded around his Defender and down the stairs. "How American. I'll drive."

"Not on your life."

God help him, Sherlock nearly squeaked  _(_ and when one says 'nearly', one means he will deny that such a sound ever came from his lips even as he covered it with a pathetically fake cough). He hadn't even noticed John start moving down the stairs, but the man was right behind him! How did someone with such short legs keep pace with him so quietly?

Outside the front door, parked and running about 5 feet away from the flat, was a small Suzuki Crossover. A deep metallic blue, the vehicle's paint and chromed hubcaps shined as if the thing had just rolled off the assembly line. Sherlock firmly planted himself on the right side and held out his hands for the key.

John smirked at him and moved to the left side of the car, and waited. And waited. Then he lifted his eyebrow, and he waited some more. Sherlock looked down into the window and sighed in defeat. He wasn't on the driver's side. Stupid Americans driving on the bloody left. Heathens.

While John took a second to adjust his side view mirrors and turn up the heating, Sherlock glanced around at the interior. It was surprisingly roomy inside, and Sherlock was happy to note his knees weren't even touching the glove box. Everything in the interior seemed to be of gray and black plastic, and the upholstery was all black cotton. Clipped to one of the fold-down visors was a pair of guardian angels, both wishing safety on the driver, one of which was for a grandson and the other a son.

Dangling from the rear view mirror was what seemed to be a plastic egg painted to look like a hedgehog. There were even little brown plastic spikes sticking out of its back. Grasping it carefully, Sherlock tilted it to see a small note painted on the bottom in careful handwriting: ' _Good luck 3C - Semper Fi til we die - Bill_ '

"Friend of mine made it. Sort of a 'congratulations on being an invalid' present." John glanced at every mirror and slipped the car into traffic effortlessly.

"You've been in England for a long enough while to acclimate to our traffic flow." Sherlock changed the subject, not wanting to get bogged down by some sentimental reminiscence before a case.

"I've only been here for a month," Watson answered. "But my sister has lived here for years. I used to visit her before we got deployed, so I know my way around despite your terrible drivers."

Without looking, John fished his datalet out of his jacket and plugged it into the docking port on the dashboard. While they waited for a light to turn green, he flicked open his GPS program. "Mind tapping in that address for me?"

Sherlock waited a whole minute before complying, just to make his displeasure known. Once that was done, he continued to search through the applications John had stored, trying to find something to mock. "Ah, what's this? A music program? With labeled playlists, too. You really are quaint."

Tapping the list labelled 'Driving Music - City', Sherlock prepared to poke fun at John's musical tastes when Vivaldi began to pour out the speakers. The Defender's smirk was a strange cross between wry and smug. "I find that listening to Classical music while in the city helps keep me more focused."

Changing the subject again, Sherlock said, "Sometimes I don't talk for days on end, would that bother you?" A quizzical glance was the only answer he received, so he continued, "I also play the violin when I'm thinking, usually during the early hours of the morning. I often perform scientific experiments in the bathroom, kitchen, and occasionally the living room when I have the space."

Except for the sound of cellos purring, the car was silent. After John successfully navigated a traffic circle, the doctor ventured, "Okay, thanks for the warning?"

"We're going to be living together, I thought it would be best to get our worst traits out in the open."

Watson frowned. After another few moments of silence, he said cautiously, "My worst traits. Well, I swear vehemently and sometimes have a tendency to throw things when I'm angry. If I don't have at least one cup of Folgers within ten minutes of waking up I become homocidal." The already grim look on John's face became even darker as he stated softly, "Oh, and let's not forget the screaming, PTSD-induced night terrors. As long as you can tune out me shrieking bloody murder at 2 in the morning, we should be just peachy."

Sherlock was completely unsure of how to answer that statement, so he fiddled with one of his coat buttons before changing the subject again. "If you've been keeping up with the papers, you'll have a vague idea of the sort of crime scene we'll be attending today."

"Another suicide?"

"Yes. Obviously something is different with this one, otherwise I'm sure Lestrade would have waited much longer to call me in."

"Why's that?"

Giving his Defender a sharkish smile, Sherlock took in a deep breath, "Firstly, he would have taken forever to realize the commonality between all the crimes. No one expects a serial killer's weapon of choice to be suicide, after all. Secondly, his forensic analyst Anderson is an idiot. It would take him months to finish collecting all the data I can see in five minutes, and it would take him twice as long to correlate everything into an intelligent report. In the meantime, he'd be so behind the killer would have a dozen victims or more and we'd never see the end of it. Finally, the other Provosts are always reluctant to cal me in as it makes them look remarkably stupid when I solve a case they have been working on for months in a matter of hours."

When his rant was finally over, John snorted in disbelief and smirked at him. "Do me a favor and try to keep your ego contained in the backseat? There's no room up here for it."

Sherlock turned his head to look out the passenger side window, trying to hide his own grin. In truth, he had expected the man to admonish him, or even ask him to repeat himself (he'd been talking swiftly for just that reason). The consultant was pleasantly surprised to have someone joke with him; new experiences were always welcome.

Wiggling his legs, Sherlock regained control of his face and turned back to say, "It's rare to find a car capable of not pushing my knees into my ears. I doubt my ego will be a problem."

"That's why I call her the TARDIS," John smiled and stroked the console in a friendly way. When Sherlock's only reaction to that was a puzzled lift of an eyebrow, John sighed, "She's bigger on the inside? Doctor Who?"

"Why are you questioning me about doctors? I thought we were talking about your car."

John groaned, "This is going to be a long day, isn't it?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a few definitions to help out in case anyone is confused or wishes for clarification.
> 
> Datalet - A cross between an iPad and a cell phone. About the size of a Kindle, a datalet is connected to a global communication network, which has taken over where the cellular phone companies failed during World War 3. Every cell tower is now connected to the GCN instead of a particular network, and all function as wireless internet hotspots. There are very few places in the world in which one cannot get internet access. They come with a Bluetooth earpiece to make phone calls easier.
> 
> Provost - The secondary military kept only by the Faction Heads of the Supernations of the world. When not mobilized for defense, the Provosts act as a police force within the borders of the Faction Head. Basically, they're a military version of Scotland Yard. Their ranks in the UK are as follows - Constable, Sergeant, Marshal, Major, Lieutenant, Captain. The Provosts answer directly to the Head of Defense for the Faction Head.
> 
> Supernation - After World War 3, also known as the Convergence War, the world's countries banded together to form 5 new nations. The American Legion (AL), the Afro-Europe Coalition (AEC), the New Persian Empire (NPE), the Ru-asian Alliance (RA), and the Austro-Pacific Collective. Each is run by a Faction Head, which holds the major governing body of the nation, The following countries are the Faction Heads of the Supernations - the United States (AL), the United Kingdom (AEC), Iraq (NPE), China (RA), and Japan (APC).


	3. To Seek, Perchance to Find

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! Proceeding right along on schedule! Apparently there's this thing out there called 'time management'. Who knew? Here's the next chapter, fresh off the presses! Thanks for reading, and reviews are always welcome!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, or any of the characters herein. I bow before the talented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss, and Steven Moffat for the privilege of borrowing their characters for a bit of fun. Thank you, gentlemen, for sharing them with the world.

Parking the car at the end of the street, John and Sherlock trotted their way up to the run-down two-story house wherein the crime scene lay. Surrounded by several of the black panda cars favored by the Provosts, the building itself was a few dislodged bricks away from being considered a derelict. Bright yellow warning tape blocked off part of the street, stretching right across the roadway on both sides of the house.

Stepping up to a strand, Sherlock held the tape aloft for John to duck beneath. Before he could start forward into the house, a rough female voice hissed, "What the hell are you doing here, freak?"

Turning to find Lestrade's sharp-nosed sergeant, Sally Donovan, nearly stomping her way over, Sherlock let a fake smile spread across his face. "Ah, Sergeant Donovan, always a pleasure."

"We don't need you here, freak," Donovan growled, "so clear off now like a good little psychopath."

"Unfortunately, Sally, I was invited by your boss, therefore I am unable to comply with your wishes."

"And who's this?" Donovan snapped, indicating John with a wave of her radio. "Bringing 'round sightseers now?"

Instead of speaking to the sergeant, Sherlock turned to John and said, "Dr John Watson, this is Provost Sergeant Sally Donovan, Lestrade's go-to right hand, can't imagine why of course. Sergeant this is my new Defender, Dr John Watson. Come along, doctor."

"Oh God, not another one," Sally groaned as she fell into step behind them. "Did he follow you home from the Tube?"

"No time for chit-chat now, Sally. Work to be done." Sherlock gave her a very fake smile.

Rolling her eyes, Donovan raised her radio to her mouth and spat into it, "Freak's here, bringing him in."

John slid into her path and crossed his arms. She stopped short, and Sherlock followed suit when the sound of their footsteps ceased. Turning around, Sherlock took in the rigid back of his Defender and the surprised look on Sally's face.

When he was sure he had her full attention, John pointed at Sally's radio. In a low voice, loud enough only for herself and Sherlock to hear, John said, "I expect professional behavior from someone in your line of work. If I ever hear of you refering to him like that again, I will have you demoted, if not fired. Understood?"

Unable to see John's face, Sherlock couldn't tell if it was the words, the tone, or the expression that caused Donovan's face to pale considerably. The sergeant nodded quickly, and darted around them both, heading for the door of the house. John rocked his head back and forth on his neck and turned around to give Sherlock a small smirk. Sherlock could feel his lips twitch in reciprocation.

As one, they turned and walked towards the house, passing a tight-lipped Sally Donovan before coming to the door. Sherlock sighed inwardly as the resident Forensic Analyst Mike Anderson planted his lanky frame just outside the open entrance. He and the doctor stopped just before crashing into him.

"Step aside, Anderson," Sherlock huffed.

"No," Anderson answered mulishly, "I won't. It's my crime scene, not yours, and I don't want you contaminating it!"

"If anything were to 'contaminate' the scene it would be your own blundering self." Sherlock shot back, moving to go around. When the analyst didn't move, he asked, "How long is your wife away this time?"

Anderson looked taken aback for a moment before his face scrunched up as if he'd eaten something sour, "Alright, who told you?"

"Your deodorant."

"What?"

"Quite a masculine scent."

"'Course it's masculine. I'm a man."

"Sergeant Donovan isn't."

Anderson turned red as a tomato and both he and John glanced back at Sally, whose face bore a murderous glare. Sherlock tweaked the sleeve of his defender, then walked around Anderson without checking to make sure the doctor followed. Just before he entered the building, Anderson shouted at his back, "I don't like what you're implying, Freak!"

Sherlock turned back around half-a-second after the doctor, who had planted himself firmly on the steps between his charge and the analyst. Looking over his Defender's shoulder, Sherlock smiled smugly and said, "Now, now Anderson, I'm sure Sally just happened to stay over last night while going over case notes. Then perhaps she cleaned your floors considering the condition of her knees."

Ignoring the sputtering coming from both the analyst and the sergeant, Sherlock turned and slipped into the house without another glance back. Casting his eyes over the interior, he deduced that Lestrade was probably up on the third floor. Mounting the stairs, he didn't need to look to know that John was right behind him.

At the top of the flight, Lestrade was waiting with his foot tapping on the buckled wooden floor. When the Marshal opened his mouth, Sherlock immediately cut him off, saying, "Spare me the pleasantries. Just tell me what's different."

Mouth still open, Lestrade glanced questioningly at John before sighing in exasperation and indicating the open door nearby. "Well, this one left a note. Just five letters; looks like she scratched it into the floor."

"Serial suicides, and now a note? Is it my birthday?" Sherlock nearly skipped into the room.

John snorted and moved to follow his charge when Lestrade raised an arm to bar his way. Piercing the Marshal's brown eyes with his dark blue ones, John let a small growl rumble in his throat. Lestrade gulped at the stare and the sound, but stood his ground.

In a curiously timid voice, Lestrade asked, "Who are you?"

"Dr John Watson. I'm his new Defender. Who are you?" Fighting to keep the belligerence from his tone, John spoke slowly and crossed his arms over his chest, never breaking their stare.

Blinking, the Marshal lowered his arm in surprise. "Provost Marshal Greg Lestrade. You're American?"

"S'what it says on my birth certificate." John tilted his head to the side.

Lestrade snorted and glanced away, trying not to smile. "Dredging the barrel, are they?"

The grin Greg received was a bare half-a-step below psychotic. John let his accent slip purposefully, "Well, apparently you posh Brits just ain't nuts enough to keep him in line."

This time Lestrade broke out into a grin and indicated that John should go first into the room. As he closed the door behind them, the Marshal stated, "You have two minutes to give me anything you've got, Sherlock. I can't fob Anderson off for longer than that."

Laying in the middle of the room was the body of a woman dressed in a pantsuit of a shocking shade of magenta. There was no sign of violence anywhere, and John's sensitive nose could not detect a hint of the coppery tang of blood. Her left hand was stretched out above her, and the perfectly manicured nails of it were torn from scratching the letters 'R-A-C-H-E' onto the wooden floor.

"If you were as smart as I wish you were," Sherlock grumbled from his bent-over position above the body, "you would 'fob' Anderson off the London Bridge and we would all be the happier for it."

Lestrade rolled his eyes behind the consultant's back and caught sight of John's eyebrow raised in questioning. Noticing the Marshal's attention, John tilted his head in askance. Lestrade smirked and stated, "Yeah, he's always like that."

A sneer crossed Sherlock's face, and he turned to snatch John's attention with a sharply spoken, "John! You are a doctor, yes? How did she die?"

Glancing at Lestrade for permission, which he received in the form of a shrug of indifference, John carefully sidled up to the body and knelt down. He peered at her fingers, then bent closer and sniffed once near her face. Rocking back on his haunches, John addressed himself to both men, "Asphixiated on her own vomit. I can't smell alcohol, so probably some kind of drug or maybe a seizure."

"Poison," Sherlock mumbled, practically shoving John out of the way. "Just like all the others. The real question here is who 'Rachel' is."

"What?" Lestrade asked from the doorway. "What do you mean 'Rachel'?"

"That's what she was carving into the floor. It's not her killer's name, that's obvious, or he would have stopped her from doing it." Sherlock paused and looked over his shoulder at the Marshal. "Why? What did you think it meant?"

"Anderson said /i rache /i is German for revenge?"

Not many people could pull off sneering and groaning at the same time, but Sherlock managed it remarkably well. "Do us all a favor, Lestrade, and fire that imbecile?"

Instead of admonishing him, Lestrade sighed and asked, "What have you got?"

Rolling his eyes petulantly, Sherlock allowed the change in subject with a sharply spoken, "Are you going to write it down this time?"

Lestrade spent a few moments patting his pockets before John simply pulled a moleskin and a pen out of his pocket and said, "I'll do it."

"Thanks, mate," Lestrade sighed.

"Thank me after I translate my hand writing for you." John smirked. "Doctor, remember?"

"If we could get on with it, ladies?" Sherlock hissed angrily. Lestrade's grunt of displeasure at that was easy to ignore. John's unblinking, angry stare gave him a little more pause, but not enough to fully admonish him.

To further express his displeasure, Sherlock spoke as quickly as he could, "Your victim is a serial adulteress, recently arrived from Cardiff. She was probably only staying one night, judging by the size of her suitcase. Sometime after her arrival at the train station, but before her check-in at her hotel, she met with our killer and thus her demise."

Lestrade scrubbed a hand over his face and groaned, "She's a serial what? Suitcase?"

"Adulteress. Obviously. As for the suitcase, where did you put it?"

John glanced back and forth between his charge and the Marshal before venturing, "I don't get it."

"It's written all over her!" Sherlock flailed his hands over the body in consternation. "Her jewelery is all perfectly clean, except her wedding ring. Scuffed up on the outside, but polished on the inside. The only cleaning it gets happens when she pulls it off her finger. Look at her nails and the skin of her hands; no manual labor for this woman. So who does she remove her ring for? Has to be a string of lovers, because otherwise she would never be able to keep up the fiction that is her status as a single woman."

"Amazing," John said softly.

Sherlock paused to glance at him, taking note that the doctor wrote with his left hand and didn't need to look at the page to write in a straight line. Then the consultant continued, "In regards to the suitcase, it would have to be a small one. She color-coordinates her entire being, not just her clothes and shoes; her nails, her lipstick, the clip in her hair, it's all the same color. Someone this conscious of their appearance? Definitely nothing bigger than an overnight bag. Also, there's the splashes of mud on the calf of her left leg. Small droplets, small spread, and therefore a small wheeled suitcase."

"Fantastic," murmured John.

Turning to his defender, Sherlock asked softly, "Did you know you were saying that aloud?"

Watson blushed. "Sorry."

"No," Sherlock swallowed, "it's fine."

"Didn't find a suitcase," Lestrade said confusedly, glancing between them both. "Also, how did you guess about Cardiff?"

"I didn't guess," Sherlock hissed. "I saw! Her coat is wet beneath the collar but the parasol in her pocket is bone dry, and her hair is mussed. She's been in rain and strong wind, and the only place that has had both of those before her time of death was Cardiff." He paused as a thought caught up to him, "What do you mean you didn't find a suitcase?"

"I mean there's no case. Just her." Lestrade looked genuinely confused.

"Did you find her datalet?"

"No."

"Then it's in her case! Where did you put it?"

"Sherlock," the Marshal's voice was exasperated, "there is no case!"

Incredulous, Sherlock wondered how it could be that even Anderson missed finding a bright pink suitcase. He went over the thought again, slowly, while looking down at the woman still splayed out on the floor. His mouth formed a round 'o' of comprehension as he realized that it was impossible to miss a bright pink suitcase, so it must still have been in the killer's vehicle. This thought led to another, being that if he found the suitcase and there was no datalet in it, then the word 'Rachel' would make more sense.

Without speaking again, Sherlock turned on his heel and sprinted out the door. Lestrade and John both shared a look of exasperation mixed with shock and ran out to the staircase landing. The consultant was already gliding determinedly down the steps.

Growling beneath his breath, John turned to Lestrade and asked, "How high are we?"

"I dunno. Twenty feet?"

"Broken ankles at the worst then." Without further ado, the Defender hopped the banister and dropped straight down the inside of the stairwell to the floor. Lestrade was so shocked, he didn't even reach out to stop him.

Sherlock stopped in the middle of the last staircase as John's falling body landed feet-first on the floor. The Defender squatted down from the impact, and slapped his hands to the floor as his momentum ceased. Feral dark blue eyes bored into Sherlock's ever-changing green-blue ones as the Defender rose back to a standing position.

As Sherlock warily stepped down onto the main floor, he watched John test each of his arm and leg joints for damage with tiny movements. In the end, John nodded in satisfaction and popped his neck with a rock of his head. The Defender's eyes never left those of his charge, even as he crossed his arms over his chest.

When the consultant finally stood in front of him, John poked him in the chest and said, in a low, soft voice, "Whether you take this seriously or not is up to you, but it's basically in my job description to follow your skinny ass around." John's accent slipped a bit as he spoke more intently. "If that means I gotta fall twenty feet every time you take off after a genius epiphany, then so be it. Howevah, my ankles'd appreciate it if you would at least have the courtesy of telling me to follow you instead of skipping off."

Cocking his head to the side, Sherlock smiled down at the smaller man before him. "You know your accent is showing?"

John growled; a real growl, like an angry jaguar. Sherlock took half a step backwards as his eyes widened in surprise. He glanced around for a plausible escape route. The Defender took a step back, then sucked in a deep breath through his nose and let it out slowly through his mouth.

When he locked eyes with Sherlock again, his voice was smooth and even, "Look, I get it. Having a tag-a-long is annoying. Well, tough shit. I'm not getting fired because you can't be bothered to share with the class. I'm assuming you read my file, so let me make this very clear," John stepped very close, and the seriousness in his eyes sank into Sherlock's bones. "If you ever disappear on me, I will hunt you down like a rabid dog, and when I find you I will break both your ankles bone by bone."

Sherlock swallowed, and in a voice half-shock and half-awe, answered, "Understood."

Suddenly, the Defender was just John again; nothing but an easy-going man in worn, ordinary clothing. "Lead on then," he smiled benignly.

Since the age of twelve, Sherlock had never smiled a smile as real as the one he gave his Defender in that moment. No one had ever before praised, admonished, and then threatened him in less than an hour. How could such an ordinary seeming man be so contradictory? Was it just the oddness of his genetic make-up? It was going to be thrilling taking the man apart piece by piece.

Finding further speech unnecessary, Sherlock whirled around and practically bounced out of the house, with John trailing close behind. Instead of heading back to the car, the consultant darted down a side street and delved into the pile of garbage beside a large, blue bin. Behind him, John asked, "What the hell are you doing?"

With an impatient sigh, Sherlock heaved open the metal lid of the bin. "Judging by her time of death, which was only a few hours ago, and considering the arrival time of the last train into London, our victim wouldn't have had time to stop at a hotel. Her case, which would be the same alarming shade of pink she was wearing, would have been left in the killer's possession. Our killer is a man, and even in these times of relative social complacency, he would have looked out of place toting around a pink suitcase." He grunted and slammed the lid shut. "Not here. Let's try another street."

"You think he got rid of it?" John kept pace with him up the next block, and put his own hands to work on another group of garbage bags.

"Wouldn't you?" Sherlock wasn't looking at Watson, but he could hear the man huff a laugh at that remark. "When we find it, we can check inside and see if her datalet is still inside. If it's isn't, it's quite possible our murderer has slipped up egregiously. It's not here. Let's try the next."

They searched several more streets until John paused at a large red bin and cocked his head in interest. Sherlock raised a brow at him and John smirked. Lifting open the bin, John fished for a moment and yanked out a bright pink suitcase. Sherlock clapped as if he'd just been presented with the greatest birthday present he'd ever received.

"How did you know?"

"Her perfume."

For once, Sherlock found himself confused. "What?"

"I noticed it when you asked me to determine how she died." John handed the suitcase over without a fight. "When we walked passed here, I smelled it again. You get to carry that back to the crime scene, by the way, since you wanted it so much."

"Don't be silly, John. We're going back to the flat." Walking away, Sherlock tossed over his shoulder, "Get your keys and keep up."


	4. A Cycle of Brilliance and Idiocy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long for me to put up. Unfortunately, my area was hit hard with a blizzard recently, and the nature of my profession made it impossible for me to do any writing. Hopefully I can have another chapter for you all by the end of this week, since the crisis is averted. Thank you for reading, and especially reviewing!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, or any of the characters herein. I bow before the talented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss, and Steven Moffat for the privilege of borrowing their characters for a bit of fun. Thank you, gentlemen, for sharing them with the world.

"Just to reiterate," John sighed as he pulled up to the curb in front of 221B Baker Street, "I don't approve of absconding with evidence."

Sherlock rolled his eyes as he unbuckled his safety belt, "Yes, I understood that the first time you said it. Once again, I shall repeat that we are not 'absconding' as you say, rather, we are delaying the time in which the evidence will be mauled by incompetents."

"If we get arrested or something, I'm stabbing you in the prison yard."

"Don't be silly, John." Sherlock grinned wickedly as he knocked the front door open with his hip. "Mycroft would never allow me to be put into prison."

As they climbed up the seventeen steps into the flat, Sherlock felt oddly contented. His previous Defenders had often simply called Lestrade or radioed into the main Provost communication channel and his new-found evidence would be snatched away beneath his nose. Despite all of John's mutterings to the contrary, the doctor had done nothing but comply with Sherlock's wishes. It was nice to get what he wanted with no effort at all.

Making a spot for the case on the table would have been a ridiculous effort, so Sherlock simply tipped it over and let everything slide off. John made a small noise of protest, then simply shrugged and flopped into one of the mismatched armchairs before the fireplace. Sherlock opened the suitcase with a flourish and delved into the contents.

"Make-up bag, clothing, feminine products," the consultant mumbled to himself. Slapping it shut, he spun around and beamed at the man seated before him. "No datalet."

Chin resting in his hand, John was leaning his left elbow on the arm of his chair. He raised a brow at Sherlock's enthusiasm, but did not speak. Ignoring the silence, Sherlock hopped into the opposite chair and perched there like a grey-coated corvid.

"Give me your datalet," the consultant held out an imperious hand.

"What's wrong with yours?" John asked, though he still held out the requested equipment.

"My text ID number is on my website, so it could be recognized." Sherlock tapped out a series of numbers and passed the screen back to the doctor. "Send these words exactly: What happened last night? I must have blacked out. Twenty-two Northumberland Street, please come." He listened to John tap out the letters slowly. "Hurry up. Have you sent it yet?"

"Yeah, yeah, hold on." John grumbled. "Okay, I sent it." He paused, then gave Sherlock a puzzled look. "Why did I send it?"

"Her datalet wasn't in her coat pocket, and it wasn't in her suitcase. Where is it? A woman like her, keeping a string of lovers, and going by her choice of dress probably in a visible position such as a reporter or television personality, would never let such a valuable piece of technology out of her sight."

"So, what, you think," John went silent and stared over at his datalet as it began to warn him of an incoming call. He let out a gusty, irate sigh and fixed a glare on his companion, "Did you have me text a murderer?"

"Well, if she had accidentally left it somewhere, and someone found it, they would ignore a text like that. But her killer? If her killer saw a message like that, which could only come from her, then he would panic!" Sherlock hopped off his chair like a jack-in-the-box and rushed to the door.

Behind him he could hear John groan and give chase, rumbling almost two steps behind. Mrs Hudson popped her head out of her own doorway and opened her mouth to protest the noise. Sherlock skidded to a stop in order to hoist her up in a swift hug.

"Can't talk now, Mrs Hudson! The game is on!"

Flitting out the door, he could hear his landlady sputtering in amusement. John paused behind him with a soft goodbye, and closed the door. Once they were both on the sidewalk, Sherlock turned the opposite direction of the car with a whip of his coat.

"Aren't we going to take the car?" John asked as he fell into step.

"Don't be an idiot. Northumberland street is barely a five minute walk from here." Sherlock was practically glowing. "Oh I love the smart ones. Always so eager to slip up."

"Shouldn't you mean the stupid ones?"

"John, don't be so dull. The smart killers are the ones who want an audience. Genius thrives on attention."

A snort sounded from the man beside him, along with a murmured, "That explains a lot."

Sherlock let a grin slip out as they crossed over the street. "There's a nice little Italian place just across the street from number 22. We can wait there for our killer to show himself."

They tread past four store fronts before coming to the door of a cozy looking restaurant. Once inside, Sherlock immediately sat down at the table by the window, not even bothering to let the waiter do his job. John just sighed and sank uncomfortably into the chair with his back to the outside world. The consultant glanced at him and wondered what it was that made his Defender so shifty.

"Is it sitting with your back to the window, the fact that we didn't tell Lestrade about the suitcase, or my sitting here without being seated?"

John hummed questioningly, his eyebrows twitching upwards. He spared a smile of thanks for the waiter that placed two menus on the table. When he turned back, something in Sherlock's face told him that his charge was not going to repeat himself. Rubbing a finger along the mastoid process behind his right ear, John chewed his lower lip before offering, "Could you clarify that please?"

"You're nervous." Sherlock smirked at the stoic look of denial that fell over John's face. Locking his fingers together in front of his face, Sherlock rattled off, "Your eyes and head keep starting the movements necessary to look behind you, and I can see your ears twitching at the sound of car horns outside. Your shoulders are squared, along with the muscle of your jaw, which I can see ticking in your face as you grind your teeth. You sighed when I sat down without waiting for Billy to indicate a seat for me, and you sat down as if you were expecting the chair to bite you in the backside." Tilting his head to the side, Sherlock spread his hands out with a flourish, as if he had just performed a magical illusion and expected applause.

What he did not expect was for John's wary face to break into a smile as the man snorted out a laugh. "I can't decide if you're for real, or if you're freakin' psychic." Sighing out the end of his chuckle fit, John pulled his napkin off the table and placed it into his lap. "It's mostly having a window at my back. You do remember that I'm a recently returned war vet, right?"

Sherlock opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by a jovial voice proclaiming, "Sherlock!"

Both men looked up to see an aging Italian man with silver hair, dressed all in black with a black apron around his waist, approach their table. The man threw an arm around Sherlock's shoulder and gave him a friendly shake. As the consultant smiled blandly, he saw out of the corner of his eye that John had completely tensed, and all the Defender's attention was focused on the touch. Inwardly, the consultant grinned. He had no doubt that should the half-embrace seem unwanted, or about to turn violent, that John would retaliate accordingly.

"John, this is Angelo. He owns the restaurant."

Angelo placed his open hand over his heart and gave Sherlock another shake, "This man, he save my life! Anything you want, I make it for you myself. É gratuito!"

Raising an ash-blonde eyebrow, John looked at his charge questioningly. Sherlock smiled wryly and said, "He said 'it's free'."

"I know what 'É gratuito' means." To Sherlock's surprise, John's Italian accent was more than passable. "I was wondering more about the life-saving part."

Leaning down over the table, Angelo pointed to Sherlock's chest and said feelingly, "He proved my innocence."

"I proved you were a burglar," Sherlock admonished with a roll of his eyes. At John's curious look, the consultant stated, "Angelo was once accused of committing a rather vicious triple murder. I managed to gather evidence to show that he was in a completely different part of town breaking into a house."

"If it were not for this incredible man, I would have gone to prison!"

"Angelo," Sherlock gripped the bridge of his nose, "you  _did_  go to prison."

The restaurateur went quiet at that for a moment, then clapped and stated, "I bring you a candle. More romantic for your date."

John looked slightly alarmed and hissed at Angelo's retreating back, "I'm not his date!"

Hiding a smirk behind his water glass, Sherlock flicked one of the menus across the table. "You might as well eat something, since we don't know how long we'll be here."

Dutifully, John picked up the menu and stared at it. He looked up once when Angelo returned with a candle, and rolled his eyes. Sherlock smirked inwardly and turned his eyes back to the world outside the window. John rested the menu back down with a sigh and stared into the candle flame for a short moment.

"So," the Defender began, "this happen to you a lot?"

"Waiting for a murderer to slip and fall into my trap? No, not often."

"I meant the candle." John leaned forward in his seat and swept his gaze around the room. "Wouldn't want to cramp your style or anything. You have a girlfriend or something you cart out to dinner here often?"

Confused, Sherlock glanced at his companion. The raised brows and slightly cocked head of his Defender told him the question was an attempt at friendly communication. Surprised at the genuine sentiment, Sherlock did not answer with a snarky remark, and instead said, "No. Not really my area."

"Boyfriend then?" John's interest was sincere.

Unused to people being bold and curious enough to ask about him, Sherlock was at a loss. Most people found him so overbearing they didn't dare ask questions of a personal nature because they were afraid of the answer. Was it an attempt at camaraderie? Was he flirting?

Uncomfortable, but hiding it well, Sherlock licked his lips and stated, "I'm married to my work, John, though your interest is flattering."

Leaning back with a look of shock on his face, John said, "I wasn't coming on to you. I was wondering about your daily life. I'm supposed to be your personal body guard, you know. I didn't know if I was going to have to make arrangements to stay elsewhere if you had a steady partner coming around."

"Oh." The consultant shook his head once. "No. I do not indulge in personal relationships. They would be detrimental to the work."

John shrugged, "Okay then." He turned his attention back to the menu on the table.

Sherlock watched him for a few moments, unable to understand how someone could be so nonchalant about bloody everything. Before he could turn his anger into a verbal tirade, a flash of streetlight off the onyx edge of a cab's roof caught his eye. Parking in the alley beside the address across the street, the black London taxi switched off its fare light and waited.

"Oh, that is elegant," Sherlock breathed. John hummed at him and turned around to look outside, then turned back with a confused look. The consultant smiled wickedly, "John, I give you the perfect murder weapon: the London Cab."

"I don't get it."

Sighing, Sherlock answered back, "Who do we trust, implicitly, to get us where we are going? Who's vehicles do we enter, without thinking, when we are drunk, or lost? They pass through the streets like specters, innocuous and invisible until they are needed."

Comprehension dawned on John's face as he turned back around to look at the taxi idling across the street. "We don't know for sure though, do we?"

They waited in silence, and when a woman walked up to the driver's side of the car, they held their breath. She was waved away, and as she sauntered off, both men let the air out of their lungs. Sherlock's smug smirk was met with a worried look from his Defender.

"Angelo! A glass of white, please!" The detective shouted suddenly.

As if summoned by magic, Angelo appeared with a glass of white wine and handed it over. Both the restaurateur and John watched, speechless, as Sherlock splashed it into his face. Standing up, the consultant artfully skewed his coat, scarf, and shirt until it looked as if he'd been in a fight.

Turning to Angelo, Sherlock asked, "The headless nun, again, please?"

"Now that was a case," Angelo said happily, pushing his shirtsleeves up to his elbow. Grabbing Sherlock by his coat lapels, the Italian shook the consultant sharply and shouted, "Out of my restaurant, you stupid, filthy drunk! Vai!"

John stared, flabbergasted, as Angelo shoved Sherlock out the door and into the street. He rose to his feet, held back only by Angelo's meaty arm as he watched his charge meander awkwardly into the street. Grabbing hold of the Italian's arm, John pulled it up and behind the restaurant owner's back, and shoved the man into the door jamb.

"What the hell is he doing?" John hissed into Angelo's ear.

"Per finge!" Angelo stuttered fearfully, "It's pretend! Don't worry! Sherlock has a plan, you will see!"

A growl rumbled in the Defender's throat, making his captive shiver. Glaring out the window, John watched as Sherlock fumbled his way through traffic and began knocking on the window of the cab. Under his breath, the Defender cursed and released the Angelo from his grip.

Outside, Sherlock rattled out the beginning of 'Shave and a Haircut' against the window of the cab, swaying his body from left to right. "C'mon, mate," he drawled in a passable Yorkshire accent. "Two-two-one-bee Buh-baker street."

The cab window rolled down and a gruff, angry voice huffed, "Piss off, mate, can'choo see the light?"

"Aow, c'mon, s'just 'round the corner," Sherlock answered, leaning halfway into the driver side window. "Help a man out, eh?"

"I said piss off. Not takin' fares now."

Lolling his body to the left, Sherlock propped himself against the rear driver side door and pulled his datalet out of his pocket. Hitting a few keys, he dialed the number for their murder victim, and let it ring. There was no sound of a ringtone from inside the cab, and when he turned his head around, he could see no sign of a glowing screen inside the vehicle. Shaking his head in anger, Sherlock stalked away from the car and back towards the restaurant.

When he reached the door, he was met with a stone-faced John Watson whose arms were crossed over his chest. Sherlock paused before the smaller man, feeling awkward in a way he hadn't felt since he was a small child at the family estate. He flashed back to a time when he was eight and the family butler had refused to let him inside until the mud covering him had been hosed off. He mentally shrugged off the memory and tapped his datalet against his thigh.

"He's not the cabby we're looking for." Sherlock offered softly.

"What. The. Fuck. Is wrong with you?" John asked in a sharp, clipped voice.

"I was," the consultant was cut off by a sharp slice of John's hand through the air.

"You know what? Not here." John zippered up his jacket and shoved his hands into his pockets, glaring at his charge. "Turn around. We're going back to the apartment, and you are going to tell me just what the hell was going through your stupid head."

Sherlock opened his mouth to argue, but something about the way John narrowed his eyes and squared his jaw quieted the protest. Feeling more like a scolded child than he ever had in his life, Sherlock turned around and began to trudge back to the flat, a petulant pout twisting his mouth. John was completely silent as they walked, and every time his charge attempted to explain, a harsh glare was the only reaction the Defender gave.

Once safely back inside the front door of the flat, John and Sherlock hung up their coats, and the Defender planted himself in front of the staircase up to their living room. Sherlock started to move around him, but something in the way the Defender propped his hands on his hips told him that was a bad idea. He flashed back to his childhood again, remembering the time he had nearly stuck a fork in a light socket; goosebumps littered the flesh of his arms and the hair at the back of his neck stood on end.

"Now," John's voice was down to as low an octave as he could manage, "you, Sherlock Holmes, are going to explain to me just what in the Sam Hill could have been goin' through yo' fuckin' head to make you hand yo'self over to a possible murderer?"

Brow furrowing as he tried to understand through John's accent slippage, Sherlock simply pointed out, "I didn't hand myself over to him and he wasn't the murderer. He didn't have her datalet. What is a 'Sam Hill' by the way?"

"It's an expression," John snarled through his tightly gritted teeth. "What if he had been the murderer and you had gotten into his car? Hmmm? I'm fast, but I can't keep up with a cab in London. Seriously, what the hell were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that I'd caught the murderer. I hadn't. What kind of expression?"

"Forget about the damn expression! Why would," John's speech was cut off as Mrs Hudson slowly entered the hall, wringing her hands.

"Oh Sherlock," she asked sadly, "what have you done?"

Puzzled, both the consultant and the Defender asked, "What's the matter, Mrs Hudson?"

All three occupants of the house shared a shocked look at each other at the synchronized speech. Mrs Hudson regained herself first, stating, "The police are upstairs in your flat!"

Surprised, John and Sherlock shared a quick look of confusion before turning to run up the stairs. In the middle of their living room, Provost Marshal Lestrade was reading something on his datalet while leaning back in Sherlock's preferred armchair. Several provosts walked back and forth around the room, looking beneath cushions and poking around in the kitchen.

Sergeant Donovan leaned out around the kitchen doorway and said, incredulously, "Sir, there's a bowl of eyeballs in the microwave!"

"It's an experiment! Put those back!" Sherlock shouted. "What the devil is going on in here, Lestrade?"

The Marshal let his datalet swing down in his hand so he could see Sherlock's confounded face. "It's a drugs bust. Or an evidence bust, I suppose."

"I am clean!" Sherlock bellowed, which caused the rest of the people to stop moving and look to Lestrade.

Anderson's voice drifted out from the kitchen, "Why's there a pan of rat heads in the oven?"

"Keep looking guys," the Marshal said nonchalantly, looking back to his screen, "who knows what we're going to find in here."

Sherlock turned pale with rage as he stalked over to stand in front of the calm Provost Marshal. "You cannot just barge in here and start going through my personal belongings without my consent!"

"And you," Lestrade dragged himself to his feet, "can't withhold evidence! It's an active murder investigation, Sherlock! I have a job to do, and you making off with pertinent pieces of evidence is only going to make it harder!"

"You have two seconds to explain, Lestrade, or I'm going to have Watson throw all of you out of here!"

"Actually," both men turned to see the Defender in question leaning against the wall between the door and the kitchen, "I'm more interested in the answer to the 'rat heads in the oven' question, and why you think this guy's," he indicated Sherlock with a thumb, "a druggie."

Taking a large step back to stand in front of John, Sherlock hissed, "Not now, John!"

The Defender's eyes narrowed, and then widened. "No, seriously. You?"

"Shut up!" Sherlock huffed childishly.

"Sherlock!" Lestrade groaned. "Look, we're on the same side, here, can we just work together?"

Reeling back to practically thrust his face into the Marshal's, Sherlock growled, "Fine! Get your filthy minions out of my flat and we can talk!"

"That's more like it." Lestrade's smile was friendly, but tired. "Wrap it up, people. Get a move on. Anderson, don't forget to take the case?"

"He'd forget his own head if," Sherlock's mouth snapped shut as John's hand closed around his elbow and drew him away from the kitchen door.

"That's enough, Sherlock." John admonished softly, giving his charge a shove to the sofa. When the detective opened his mouth to argue again, John gave him the same 'that's enough out of you, young man' glare that his grandmother had often fixed him with. Apparently, the look still worked wonders, as Sherlock pouted and crossed his arms over his chest much like a surly teenager, refusing to speak further.

Lestrade's tired smile became just a bit more genuine at the sight. Who knew it only took the proper sort of glare to silence the otherwise verbose consultant? Instead of remarking on it, lest he break the spell of John's influence, Lestrade ventured, "We found out who Rachel is." When Sherlock gave him his full attention, the Marshal continued, "She's the daughter of one, Jennifer Wilson, our victim. Aborted four years ago because of complications with the pregnancy."

"Why would she carve her dead daughter's name into the floor when she was dying?" Sherlock asked, looking genuinely confused.

"Guilt, maybe?" John asked.

Sherlock looked up at his Defender, "It was four years ago, why would she still be upset?" He waited while Lestrade gave him a look that was part incredulity and part disgust, and John furrowed his brows in concern. Raising one eyebrow and furrowing the other, he asked John, "Not good?"

"A bit, yeah." was the Defender's answer, spoken in a tone that suggested it was very much not good.

"But she was clever!" Holmes popped up off the sofa and stood between the two other men. "Running all those lovers, she had to be. Why would she carve a dead child's name as her last act on Earth? It took a lot of effort, it would have hurt. Instead of conserving her energy, she used her fingers to scratch out each letter." He looked puzzled. "If you were being murdered, wouldn't you want your last act to lead your investigators to the killer?" He rounded on John suddenly, "If you were being murdered, what would you say?"

"Please, God, let me live," John answered solemnly, without hesitation.

"Use your imagination!" Sherlock sneered.

The Defender rotated his left shoulder back almost imperceptibly, "Don't have to."

Silence fell as Sherlock looked into the dark blue eyes of his Defender and saw the complete sincerity written within them. Embarrassed, he covered his blush by turning his back on both men and walking over to the hearth. "It doesn't make any sense! She was being murdered and she didn't have her datalet, so she scratched...Oh!"

Both Lestrade and John started as Sherlock suddenly exclaimed again excitedly and whipped the datalet out of Lestrade's hand. Typing furiously, he pulled up a log-in screen and a map, and fed the victim's contact number into the GPS finder. John and Lestrade stared around his shoulders as a tiny dot blinked to life.

"There's your murderer, Lestrade." The consultant said smugly, handing the equipment back over, "She was leaving us a clue to find her killer after all."

Lestrade looked monumentally confounded, but John looked thoughtful and then smiled. The Defender said, "It's her password to the GPS locator. Her daughter's name."

"Bloody hell, it says the bastard's just around the corner!" Lestrade grinned widely and took off down the stairs, barking orders for officers to begin searching.

"John, go down and tell Lestrade he's looking for a cab?" Sherlock asked, oddly polite.

The Defender gave him a suspicious look, but nodded and obeyed the request, slipping down the stairs much more quietly than the Marshal had. Sherlock waited until the front door slammed shut before walking out onto the landing. He waited a full minute before the door opened again, and an aging man in a brown cap entered the foyer, closing and locking the door behind him.

As he placed a foot on the stairs, the elder man glanced up at the young consultant and calmly greeted, "Pleasure to meet you, Mr Holmes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a bit of a break down for everyone about the Supernations:
> 
> The American Legion (AL) - Canada, the Bahamas, the Keys, the West Indies, the Galapagos, all of South America, Mexico, Central America, Greenland, and the United States. Faction Head - United States
> 
> The Afro-Europe Coalition (AEC) - all of Europe (including the United Kingdom but excluding Belarus and Latvia) up to and including the Netherlands, Madagascar, and all of Africa and its surrounding islands. Faction Head - England
> 
> The Ru-Asian Alliance (RA) - Russia Federation, India, China, North and South Korea, Tibet, Mongolia, Belarus, Latvia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Faction Head - China.
> 
> The New Persian Empire (NPE) - Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, U.A.E., Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, basically all of the Middle East. Faction Head - (tentatively) Iraq.
> 
> The Austro-Pacific Collective (APC) - Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, Malaysia, New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia, Hawaii, and Japan. Faction Head - Japan.
> 
> If you don't see your country listed here, just think about where you're located in the world, and whatever countries are closest to you. That's which Supernation you belong to.


	5. Slow Dance to an Inevitable Conclusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting back in the groove! Another installment up and running. Yay me! Thank you for reading and reviewing, it makes me so happy to see your thoughts pop up in my inbox! Love you all! BTW - I switch POVs a bit in this chapter, so I took the liberty of using italics to represent John's POV.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, or any of the characters herein. I bow before the talented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss, and Steven Moffat for the privilege of borrowing their characters for a bit of fun. Thank you, gentlemen, for sharing them with the world.

Less than average in height, the murderer, who introduced himself as Mr Jefferson Hope, was a frankly forgettable man even to someone as observant as Sherlock. Dressed in a mouse-colored hat, brown hooded jacket, and brown corduroy trousers, he faded into the upholstery of his cab like a well-camouflaged lizard. He was very much like a lizard too, in the way his dark eyes seemed to stare unblinkingly out from beneath his bushy gray brows.

"You do realize that they will return the moment they realize you tricked them," Sherlock said calmly as he offered the criminal a seat before the hearth fire.

Mr Hope smiled wanly, "Of course. I won't even bother running. Wouldn't be much point now."

"So why come here?"

"Curiosity." When his answer did not receive more than a twitch of the consultant's brow, Mr Hope shrugged and crossed his legs as he settled in his seat. "See, I didn't realize anyone was on to me, until I got that message on the datalet. S'in a pink case, did joo know? I turnt the volume down and hid it in me glove box after I read it. Made sure she was dead afore I left, so's I knew it couldn't've been from her. I decided I'd go along anyway and see who it was what was following me."

Sherlock tightened his grip on the arms of his leather recliner, biting his tongue from correcting the man's unfortunate grammar. "You knew who I was, then?"

"Oh yeah," the man smiled blithely, "'course I did. The Great Sherlock Holmes, eh? Fan of yours showed me your website. Proper genius, I must say. When I realized it was you trying to get in my cab, I knew I was caught."

"Then why did you not turn yourself over to me or the Provosts immediately?"

"Where's the fun in that?" Mr Hope uncrossed his legs and leaned forward to drag one of the small pedestal tables between them. "I thought to myself, oi, Jeff, where's the fun in handing yourself over to the Provvies? Where's the fun in just tellin' 'em how you did it?" From the pockets of his coat, he produced two identical bottles with one pill each and placed them on the table. "How about you show 'em instead?"

Staring at the pills, then at his slightly unwelcome guest, and then back at the bottles, Sherlock sent his mind whirring. When the solution presented itself, he felt his face smooth out and his mouth twitch up in one corner. "Ingenious."

* * *

_They were halfway down the block when something in the back of John's mind tugged at his attention. He couldn't hear or smell Sherlock in the mass of officers bolting down the road. It's wrong, his gut told him, that his charge was not there, racing towards the GPS marker like a bloodhound after a scent._

_It's not until they find the phone, sitting on the driver's seat of an unattended black cab, that he knows for sure he's been had. Biting back the snarl that tried to rise in his throat, John grabbed Lestrade by the arm and spat out, "He's at the flat. Sherlock's tricked us and so did the bastard cabbie."_

_Lestrade's steel-coloured brows crashed together almost audibly as he shouted out orders for half the men to remain with the vehicle and call for a forensic team and a tow truck. The rest he ordered waspishly back to the consultant's flat. Retracing their steps at a dead run, the Marshal glanced at the short Defender who managed to keep pace beside him, seeming furious to be sure, but not winded in the least._

" _What the hell is that bloody fool thinking?" The Marshal gasped out between strides._

" _Are you talking about the cabbie," John grumbled tightly. "or our idiot consultant?"_

" _Both," Lestrade pressed a hand to the stitch developing in his side._

" _Truthfully, I don't give a flying fuck what the murderer's thinking. As for Sherlock?" John shrugged, flashing a bewildered look over to the Marshal. His face turned sour as they rounded the last corner and made a bee-line for the panda cars being watched over by Sergeant Donovan. "I'll tell you one thing though, you might want to stick around and call an ambulance for later."_

" _Why's that?"_

" _Because I'm going to beat the shit out of Sherlock when we get there."_

_Gasping out a laugh, the Marshal skidded to a stop in front of his sergeant. "Donovan, did you see anybody go inside the flat?"_

" _No, Sir." Sally leaned her head to the side, listening in on the radio as the other part of their team called for a tow truck. "Landlady came out and chatted for a bit. Said she was going down the road to the Chinese place for dinner." She looked a bit sheepish, "I suppose someone could have slipped in while I wasn't looking."_

_Turning to the door, the Marshal watched as John tested the portal and cursed under his breath when it didn't open. As John walked back out into the street, probably trying to get a look inside the upstairs windows, Lestrade snatched his datalet out of his car. He called up his most frequently used number and waited._

" _Defense Home Office," a smooth, calm voice purred out of the speaker. "How may I direct your call?"_

" _Provost Marshal Greg Lestrade for Mr Mycroft Holmes, please. It concerns his brother." Rolling his eyes as a bit of classical music sounded in his ear, Lestrade eyed the rapt way Dr Watson was studying the building before him and the one across the street._

* * *

"That's your plan. A game of chance?" Sherlock looked distinctly miffed at the two bottles on the little table before him, one of which had been pushed his way. He wrinkled the bridge of his nose in disgust, "How inelegant."

A thunderous look overtook the cabbie's face, "S'chess, not chance! You're not playin' the bottles or the pills, you're playin' me."

"It  _is_  chance, Mr Hope." The consultant crossed his arms over his chest. "Besides, what is to stop me from simply walking away?"

Without speaking, the man pulled out a gun from the back of his waistband and held it up. Sherlock rolled his eyes like a surly teen. Hope frowned deeply and motioned towards the bottles between them.

"Which bottle did I give you, eh? The good or the bad? The poison or the placebo?" Leaning back in his seat, the murderer waggled his pistol back and forth with each word. "You have five seconds to choose. If you don't, I shoot you in the head."

"Please, do us both a favour, and shoot me now?"

"What?"

Sherlock glared at his opponent. "It's not a real gun."

"Care to test that?"

"I am an astute observer of all things related to crime, Mr Hope." The consultant leaned his elbows on his knees and placed his hands palm-to-palm before his lips. "That is a lighter, Zippo brand I believe, and the worst you can do is singe off my eyebrows with it. Please feel free to shoot me if I'm mistaken."

A small flame shot out of the barrel of the gun when the cabbie depressed the trigger. He smiled pleasantly. "You are good. Nobody else could tell the difference."

"Of course not," Sherlock smirked. "Nobody else is me."

"That's true, now, isn't it?" Hope placed the fake weapon on the table between them, and waved a hand at the bottles again. "Where were we?"

"I was telling you that I refuse to play a game of chance where the odds are fifty-fifty." Reclining regally in his chair, Sherlock flourished a hand at the door out of the flat. "Feel free to hand yourself over to the Provosts on your way out."

The man snorted, "That's it? You don't even want to know why I did it?"

"You can tell it to the officers outside. I can read the report."

"Here's a better question then," Hope's friendly smile turned sly. "Don't you want to know if you could have beaten me?"

* * *

_Lestrade couldn't decide if he or Dr Watson was the more livid when Mycroft Holmes refused to authorise the use of deadly force to get the murderer out of Sherlock's flat. "Please, Sir, reconsider! He's your brother, and Lord knows what that criminal is capable of!"_

" _I will not reconsider, Provost Marshal," Mycroft stated sternly. "As you said, we do not know what this man is capable of. I am also intimately familiar with Sherlock's limitations, and I assure you that even should the man prove armed, my brother is capable of handling himself accordingly. I will not have one of your ill-trained snipers firing into my brother's home!"_

_John had heard enough. Ignoring the argument, he turned his eye to the building across the street. There were plenty of apartments up there with windows on level with Baker Street's. He was not just going to sit idly by and wait for permission to do his damn job._

_Without looking back, the doctor darted across the street and into the opposing building. Ascending the stairs at a rapid pace, he glanced around for any people that might potentially catch him where he did not belong. Avoiding the cameras in the lobby and front hall was easy – he just walked behind a taller, broader man. No neighbours peeked out of doors as he passed; the hall of the floor he needed to be on was completely empty. There were no security cameras in the stairwells, presumably because everyone took the elevators these days._

_Choosing the right room to enter was a challenge, but thankfully his innate sense of direction did not fail him. It came down to two doors, both of which had the same electronic keypad system, and both of which held no outward sign of occupancy. It was the matter of a few seconds of listening to ascertain the vacant one, and once that was discovered he focused on the lock itself._

_The make and model of the keypad reminded him of the old barracks he had lived in back home in America. Ten years ago it had been considered the apex of security mechanisms, until someone had learned the fatal flaw in the design was that if the power went out, or the keypad shorted, one was essentially locked within their dwelling until a repairman could be found._

_Five years ago, the company had replaced all its old locks with an updated keypad design with a fascinating fail-safe – if the keypad shorted out or power was lost, the door would unlock itself. Since nothing short of a tazer could generate the voltage required, the darts of which could not penetrate the casing, the locks were virtually impregnable._

_Unless you were Dr John Watson, with a certain genetic anomaly that effectively turned him into a walking Tesla Coil. Pulling a tube of conductive gel from his pocket, John squeezed some into his palm. Slapping that hand to the keypad, he pressed down until he could feel the gel seeping into the panel around the numbered buttons. Tensing his arm, he flexed the Hunter's organs, gifted to him by the DNA of an electric eel, in his abdominals and arm and discharged a current into the pad._

_With a soft fizzle and a sharp pop, the lights in the apparatus died and the locking mechanism in the door thunked open. Smiling in satisfaction, John pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the gel from the pad,smudging any possible fingerprints. He then cleaned his hand and shoved the cloth back in his jacket pocket. With a last glance around, he slipped into the now open flat._

* * *

Holding the bottle he had chosen from his challenger before the firelight, Sherlock asked, "So, why did you do it?"

"Money, mostly. I've kids to take care of; well, child support payments, really. Besides, I'm getting on in years and I've got an aneurysm just waiting to burst right here," Hope tapped the right side of his skull, just shy of his temple. He tipped the pill of his own bottle into his hand and stood up. "Too unpredictable a condition for a job that pays more than a taxi company."

"So how do you make your payments?" The consultant let his chosen pill slide out onto his palm and held it up so he could study its colouring. "You don't make any money from your victims. You didn't steal from them."

"More than one way to make money off a corpse." Mr Hope was quiet for a moment until Sherlock looked up at him. "Every body I make gets me a healthy sum to give to my kids. Since I could go at any time, I figure its the easiest money I'm ever going to make."

Sherlock stood up and held the pill aloft, peering at the dim shimmer of its coating. "Someone pays you to murder people?"

"I prefer to look at it as out-living them. Most fun you can have in my condition."

* * *

_'That complete fucktard,' John mentally cursed Sherlock Holmes as he stared through the window across the street. 'The minute I get him alone, I'm gonna kill him myself.'_

_From his position in the empty apartment across the street from 221B, John could see his idiot of a charge standing and staring at something in his hand. The shorter man in front of him had his back to the window, so John couldn't see his face. Shaking his head, John pried open the window he was looking out of and reached into the back of his waistband._

_It had been almost a year since he had last held a gun, but that didn't stop the grip of it from feeling at home in his palm. A gift given, partially in jest, by his old unit, John had never expected to ever fire a Desert Eagle again. There was a time he wasn't even sure his arm would ever be able to handle the weight of the weapon. But that was all in the past now._

_After his return from the war, John had struggled to find a purpose. Now, standing in a darkened room and staring across the night-draped street at his new mission, he knew what was expected of him. Raising the gun in a hand as steady as a mountain, John Watson felt his irises dilate as the falcon in his genes focused on his prey._

* * *

"You know, I always wondered," Jefferson Hope smiled almost drunkenly, "why don't people think? Isn't it maddening? All those stupid sods out there in the big world. They get up, they sleep, they work, and for what? Couple of pounds a month? A flat?"

There was something about Hope's voice that sat on a dangerous borderline between persuasive and grating. His tone was almost teasing, and the words were poisonously pervasive to Sherlock's overworked and oft under-stimulated genius mind. The pill was inching closer and closer to his face, and he was barely aware that his hand was moving it.

"When your fan showed me to your website, I thought, blimey, there's a bloke who understands. I wanted to meet you someday, hoped to even. Then your fan offered me a deal." Jefferson smiled. "I took it, and lo an' behold, here we are!"

"You keep mentioning a 'fan'." Sherlock cocked his head to the side, trying to dispel the cabbie's personal version of hypnosis. "Who is it? Who sponsors a serial killer?"

Hope shrugged, "Never actually met him. But I can tell you - the people he introduced me to never mentioned him by name. I only heard it much later, after my second win, whispered in the shadows."

Lowering the pill, Sherlock waited. Instead of speaking, Hope raised an eyebrow and waited until they were both holding their respective pills half a foot from their mouths. The cabbie's eye twitched as someone outside on the street honked their horn loudly.

"Moment of truth." Hope said quietly. "Let's take our med'cine and see who's the cleverest man in London."

Sherlock was surprised to find his hand shaking as he brought the capsule to his lips. As he opened his mouth to receive it, a thundering crash sounded from the window, then Hope cried out in pain just before something embedded itself into the floor by Sherlock's feet. The cabbie fell to his knees, gasping as scarlet blood poured out of the hole in his chest, and the consultant stared wide-eyed at the cracked remains of the window.

Dropping the pill involuntarily, Sherlock darted over to quickly examine the bullet hole in the glass pane. Sliding down to the floor beside his adversary, who was wheezing wetly, the consultant stared at the dull brass end of a .357 bullet casing barely visible in his floorboard. Putting all that information aside, he slid over to his dying enemy.

"Was I right? The pill?" The consultant asked, a tinge of frustration colouring his tone. Hope's only answer was a wet cough as blood welled from his lips. Sherlock wrapped a hand around the man's wrist. "Tell me something else then. My fan. You said you heard his name whispered. Give me the name."

Hope shook his head stubbornly, then cried out as Sherlock yanked his injured arm. The man still would not speak, so Holmes stood up and jammed his foot against the edge of the bleeding wound. He did it again, varying the pressure, until Hope was nearly screaming.

"The name!"

A single word burst forth from Hope's lips, accompanied by his dying breath, "Moriarty!"

With only enough time to step away from the body, Sherlock heard the door behind him slam open just before he was dragged out bodily to the ground floor and out into an ambulance. When it was clear he was unharmed, the technician gently placed a blanket the same shade of orange as chicken tikka masala over his shoulders. When he tossed it off, the technician replaced it again with a sad, almost pitying smile that made Sherlock want to box the man's ears.

It was about that time that Lestrade sidled up, his face expressing the same type of exhaustion Sherlock's father often did when faced with his youngest son. "Everything okay, Sherlock?"

"Why am I wearing this blanket?"

"EMT thinks you're in shock." The Marshal shrugged. "Plus, the lads want to take pictures."

Sherlock pouted, "I'm not shocked."

"In shock."

"Whatever!" The consultant waved his hands dramatically. Deciding a change of tactics was in order, as the Provost Marshal was wearing a particularly annoying smirk, Sherlock asked, "Who was your sniper?"

"Didn't have one." Lestrade scratched the back of his head in thought. "Your brother refused deadly force. Some rubbish about our snipers not being good enough. Whoever it was, they cleared off after the shot so we've nothing to go on."

The look Sherlock let grace his face managed to marry scorn with exasperation. "The bullet in my floor is from a handgun. Kill shot, over that distance? With that kind of weapon? Man must be a marksman, a crack shot at any rate, and his hands couldn't have shaken in the least. Acclimatized to violence, then, though he didn't fire until I was in immediate danger, so he must have a strong moral backbone." His eyes scanned the crowd lazily, as if he could pick his opponent's shooter out of the faces of the onlookers. "Probably someone with a military background, nerves of steel," Sherlock's voice trailed off as his eyes stalled on a certain visage, and everything clicked into place.

There, in the sulphuric glow cast by a nearby lamppost, stood John Watson at parade rest. A combat medic ranked as a grade-A marksman; a veteran soldier built around the compassionate spine of a doctor. His Defender.

"Ignore everything I just said," Sherlock said quietly. "Maybe I am a bit in shock."

Always sympathetic, Lestrade groaned but waved the consultant off and told the EMTs to get a move on. "I expect a full report tomorrow!"

Coming to stand before his guardian, Sherlock tossed his disgustingly colored blanket into one of the nearby panda cars and pushed his hands into his pockets. John lifted a brow at him and said, "Donovan just explained about the pills. Bad business."

Lips curving in a furtive smile, Sherlock offered, "Perfect shot. Knew I could count on you."

John's face fell into the stiff mask of an angry soldier. His voice was dark and harsh, "You did not. You didn't think of anything but yourself. You know, if the ambulance wasn't leaving right now, I'd punch you in your stupid fuckin' face."

With a nervous swallow, Sherlock took a tiny step back. "You should probably clean the powder burns off of your hands."

"I wore gloves," John hissed dismissively. "And I tossed them in the sewer two blocks away. They think I was arguing with Mycroft on my datalet in the alleyway. I'm not a genius, but I'm not exactly stupid, y'know."

"You are alright, though, yes? No signs of guilt or nervousness?"

Snorting softly, John looked up at the sky a moment, then quirked a corner of his lips up. "This isn't my first rodeo." His face grew contemplative. "I've seen a lot of violence in my life. Seen men, women, children, even friends die." The contemplation gave way to a shrug. "'Sides, it's not like the guy was nice or anything."

Looking into the dark navy of John's eyes, Sherlock smirked. "Hungry?"

"Heck, yes."

As Sherlock turned to lead the way down the street, John fell into step beside him. As they traipsed over to John's car, Sherlock said, "I know a good Chinese place. Stays open late, until about two in the morning."

"I always have room for Chinese food."

"Did you know that if you examine the bottom third of the door handle, you can tell how good a Chinese restaurant is?"

"Bullshit."


	6. A Spy Is A Terrible Thing to Waste

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so very sorry it's taken me this long to get a chapter up. I've run into a bit of personal stuff, and got sick, and a host of other things. I swear I haven't forgotten about everyone. Anyway, here's a new chapter to slake your thirsts. Thank you for reading!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, or any of the characters herein. I bow before the talented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss, and Steven Moffat for the privilege of borrowing their characters for a bit of fun. Thank you, gentlemen, for sharing them with the world.

The darkest hours of the night have always been Sherlock's favourite. They allowed him the freedom of uninterrupted contemplation since he was first able to stay awake past the hour of ten o'clock. Since he discovered this brilliant expanse of time, in which the dull world at large slept away in relative silence, he made it into his own sort of intellectual haven, wherein he was allowed the opportunity to indulge in the most unsolvable of the mysteries that filled his life.

For the past three weeks, he spent these hours focusing on the enigma that is his Defender. Dr John H Watson is so contradictory in his being that Sherlock has actually given himself a headache on more than one occasion just trying to suss out a concrete fact. It is as hateful and as enjoyable an affair as any challenge he has ever faced.

John has a number of routines, for example, that he performs daily when the time is allowed for it. In all Sherlock's years of sharing a flat, even his years boarding at University, his living space sharers have reacted negatively if their practically compulsive workaday actions have been disrupted. Contrary to all he has ever observed, John handles breaks in his usual practices with a considerable amount of aplomb. But even that cool nonchalance has its exception, in the form of the doctor's morning cup of coffee. That single cup was the only thing he never did without.

Then there were John's personal grooming habits. If possible, John would take a shower every day after his hour long jog at the disgustingly early hour of 6. If it was not possible, he didn't whine or complain as many people might, but instead simply shrugged and changed into some less sweat-stained clothing. He dealt very well with getting dirty, muddy, or even on occasion slimy, opting apparently to grin-and-bear-it. However, if there were wounds involved, John was the very soul of antibacterial cleanliness. He would scrub his arms up to the elbows, even if they were already clean, put on a new pair of latex gloves, and get to work.

When it came to living space, John's bedroom was almost obsessively neat, as only one trained by the military can be. The first time Sherlock sneaked in, he was amazed at the man's organization. Everything seemed to have its place, and the bookshelf looked like a miniature library. Compared to the chaos of the rest of the flat, it was immaculate. Just to see his reaction, Sherlock had reorganized the books by height order one day. Instead of being angry and shouting at such an invasion, John had retaliated by relocating all of Sherlock's bathroom products into the freezer.

That was another thing that annoyed him; John's sense of humour. Sherlock hated to admit it, even to himself, but he found John's dry and intelligent wit was a welcome change from the unhelpful, disparaging comments of the Provosts. John was not above being sarcastic, even snarky,even at crime scenes. If Sherlock attempted to be humorous, his macabre sarcasm usually got him disgusted looks by Defenders and Provosts alike, but John actually laughed, even while admonishing him about his inappropriate timing.

Wary when first introduced to people, John had a genuinely amiable temperament that allowed him to be well-liked wherever he went. Not even Sherlock was immune to his easy and accepting manner, which vexed the consultant greatly when he realized he was actually relaxing in John's presence. The worst part was that John had an immense store of patience that rivalled that of the angels. Calm at the best of times, John seemed to get even calmer, almost Zen-like, the more stressful or dangerous things became.

But as even-tempered as he was, should his charge be threatened John would strike out like an enraged viper. Beneath the soft, cotton exterior of John's genial demeanour lurked an icy-steel core of primal ferocity. It was easy to forget that John was trained to kill as well as heal when faced with his boyishly charming smile and disarming wardrobe choices. Sherlock was not easily fooled, though, by the doctor's outward displays of cordiality. He'd done the maths himself using the files Mycroft had collected and knew the truth – John was technically 98% human, and that final 2% made all the difference.

Switching his datalet screen from sheet music to his document folder, Sherlock pulled up his listing of John's genetic anomalies. Since he had first gotten the background file, Sherlock had copied the list of animals used by the scientists responsible for John's unique genetic structure. On that new file, he added his own notations on what gifts had been bestowed by each considering where they had been inserted into John's DNA.

So far, it read:

 _Haliaeetus leucocephalus_ : Telescoping vision (?) not yet confirmed, suspected due to marksmanship rating; Colour reception (?)

 _Lynx rufus_ : See in darkness (ability confirmed through verbal communication, mechanics still unk), modifications to muscular structures (focus on elasticity)

 _Electrophorus electricus_ : Electrolocation? (Find out what 'DFB' stands for)

 _Puma concolor_   _couguar_ : Hearing sensitivity – 2x better than avg, modifications to the intrinsic muscles of the external ear

 _Canis lupus_ : Brain modification – pack mentality/social structures

 _Equus ferus caballus_ : Mustang – Body modification to pulmonary/carido functions (endurance) and bone structure

 _Heloderma suspectum_ : Heightened sense of smell, approx 2x better than avg

 _Crocodylus acutus_ : Body modification – muscular/skeletal structure of the jaw (Bite pressure ?)

 _Menura novaehollandiae_ : Body modification – vocal chords

He was still trying to hash out the particulars, but so far he felt he had done a fine job. John was no help when it came to showing off his less-than-human side in every day life, except for little things that Sherlock wasn't sure he could help. It was those small actions which sometimes made the consultant wonder if John was human at all.

For example, John has a tendency to lounge on the floor in sunbeams when the days are nice, and he makes a humming noise deep in his chest when he is contentedly warm. He yawns like a house cat, tongue curling and lips baring his canines as his mouth opens wide. He eats red meat as rare as it can be made, without spice or seasoning. Then there is the hard, challenging stare John fixes on every person he meets, an unblinking affair that seems to chill its recipients to the bone. Even Sherlock has found himself disturbed by the predatory focus in that gaze.

Flashing blue and amber light outside the window called him from his reverie. The front door of the building opened downstairs, and Sherlock could hear familiar footsteps slogging up the steps. An answering set of footsteps echoed from the upper attic, and Sherlock knew John had woken from his slumber and would soon be downstairs.

A glimpse of silver in the darkness of the living room doorway told Sherlock that it was Provost Marshal Lestrade who had come to fetch him. The Marshal cursed softly as he strode into the darkened room, and swore more loudly when he stubbed his shin on the leg of the coffee table. Sherlock hid a smirk by turning to put his violin and bow in their case.

"Don't move, Lestrade," John's voice said from the stairwell. "You're only gonna trip on something else."

"Well turn on the bloody light then," the Marshal hissed, rubbing his bruised appendage.

"Can't," John sighed. "Sherlock turns the lamps off, not the switch. Besides, you're in the way."

Sherlock snapped his instrument case shut and heard Greg turn around as if to search out the switch. He jerked around when Lestrade let out a gruff squeal, and the consultant watched the Marshal trip hastily over the coffee table and an ottoman before landing on the floor with his limbs splayed out like a newborn colt. Looking up into the doorway, Sherlock gasped at the pair of floating green orbs glowing in the black shadow of the stairs.

"For the love of Pete," John's tired voice came out of the dark and the orbs disappeared with the sound of his footsteps. Light bloomed in the kitchen and John leaned in the doorway there, looking down at the Marshal struggling to rise from the floor.

"Fascinating!" Sherlock breathed, leaping gracefully over the sprawled Provost to crowd into John's personal space. Gripping the Defender's chin, he tried to cup his hand over the man's eye when John thrust the heel of a hand into his solar plexus. The detective let out a whoosh of air as he stumbled back a few paces.

"What the fuck is the matter with you two?" John's voice was clipped and wary, one hand still out in front of him.

Lestrade, still on his knees on the floor, leaned a hand against the table and craned his head around Sherlock's hip. John stared back and forth between both their faces, hands braced against both sides of the doorway with his brow furrowed in confusion. The consultant looked down at the Marshal as Lestrade looked up at him, and then both of them looked back at John.

Smiling widely with child-like glee, Sherlock proclaimed, " _Tapetum lucidum_!"

"Tapay-what?" Lestrade asked in a voice an octave higher than normal. He sounded half-way to a nervous breakdown.

" _Tapetum lucidum_ ," Sherlock repeated slowly. "It's a layer of tissue that lies immediately behind the retina of most wild animals with the purpose of reflecting light back into the photoreceptors, which allows them to see in the dark."

John's confused look morphed into a frown, and then he rolled his eyes and let out a loud sigh of exasperation. "My eyes glow in the dark, yes. Thanks so much for noticing."

Greg struggled to stand back up again, "What the hell do they do that for?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes and spoke slowly, "Were you not listening? It is so he can see in the dark. I knew you weren't the brightest in your class, Lestrade, but I did not think you were also deaf."

"Yeah, I got that part," the Marshal growled. "What I meant was why?"

"Ladies!" John barked when Sherlock opened his mouth to retaliate. When they both looked at him, he focused his gaze on Lestrade. "I'm a Genetic Anomaly. Some scientists thought they'd have fun screwin' around with my DNA in order to create a super soldier, and voilà, one of the side effects is that my eyes glow. Now, is there a reason I'm up at oh-dark-thirty in the morning, or is this some kinda of social call?"

"One of the side effects?" Lestrade asked uncomfortably. John gave him a stern glare and made a soft snarling sound of displeasure. Greg raised his hands in surrender and stated, "Sorry, sorry. Got a locked-door-room murder for you with a headless corpse that shows signs of having been tortured."

The smile that spread across Sherlock's face was anything but reassuring. "Provost Marshal, is this some sort of early Bank Holiday present? You shouldn't have. Text me the address, and John and I shall catch you up."

Nodding, Lestrade moved to the doorway and paused, leaning back around the jamb to scrutinize John's face, "Seriously, you can see in the dark?"

"Murder. Crime scene. Go!" John snapped, pointing in the direction of the front door.

Sherlock chuckled as the Marshal threw his hands up again and jogged back down the steps and out into the twilight. With a wry shake of his head, John carelessly saluted his charge as he made his way back up to his room, presumably to dress. Smirking, the consultant slipped into his own room to do the same, just as his text alert sounded.

* * *

The apartment in which the murder had occurred was a Spartan affair, with very few personal touches, and the taste level of the décor was on par with that of a junk heap. If he hadn't seen the designer suits lined up in the victim's closet, he would have thought the man was a poor soldier, like John. As it was, he stared down at the headless corpse and motioned John to do the same.

Laying on his back on the floor, the victim was dressed in an impeccable blue Armani suit with thin, white pinstripes. His tie was still knotted just beneath where his head had been severed, and his hands had been crossed over his chest. Other than the small puddle of blood laying just beneath the stump, there was no sign that violence had occurred within the apartment.

"What do you see, John?" Sherlock asked, pulling a small magnifying glass out of his pocket and aiming it at what was left of the victim's neck.

"A dead man with good taste in clothes and bad taste in interior design?"

Sighing, Sherlock crouched down over the body, taking in the details written in the lint and skin of the victim. "Don't be obtuse, John. You have eyes, use them to their full potential! Observe!"

John sighed and cast his eyes over the room at large. Sherlock waited for a long moment as his Defender's brow wrinkled, and then John's eyes closed and he took in a deep, slow breath through his nose. When his navy eyes opened again, John swivelled his head back and forth while scanning the ground, a confused look on his expressive face.

"Where's all the blood?"

"John, I dare say you will be useful yet. You have managed to ask the one question none of these other idiots even considered."

In the bedroom doorway, Lestrade sighed loudly and thumped his forehead lightly against the wall. John tossed him a wry smirk and circled his way to the body, glancing around like a curious owl. Sherlock hopped over the corpse with a flap of his Belstaff coat and zeroed in on the man's armoire.

Drawers were opened and objects were rifled through in Sherlock's quest for more information. So far, he'd gleaned that the man was a spy, though not one of Mycroft's, and who had a penchant for collecting rubber ducks and eating all the vegetarian cuisine he could get his hands on. Well, that and the man had obviously not been killed in the room.

"Been dead at least four hours," John offered to the room at large. "Clean cut through the neck too, with a very sharp blade. That's not what killed him, though."

"What? Really?" Lestrade moved further into the room to stand at the dead man's feet.

"Asphyxiated," Sherlock mumbled just before he slid under the bed.

"How can you possibly," Lestrade began, but he was cut off by Sherlock's voice saying, "Fingers. Obviously."

At the confused glance the Marshal gave him, John pointed to the victim's hands. "Cyanosis in his fingertips. I can't tell you how he died without an autopsy and, you know, the head."

Sherlock slithered out from beneath the bed and stalked to the closet, yanking open the door and pausing briefly before shoving clothing out of the way. "At least we can own he had a good bespoke tailor. Oh! Also a gun-safe and what appears to be a stalker's wall."

As Lestrade called the forensics team into the room, John leaned over his crouching charge to look at the back wall of the closet. A collage of pictures decorated the wall above the small safe, all with the same subject in various scenarios. Sherlock traced the line of photos with a finger, tilting his head back and forth as he looked for a pattern.

"What do you think?" John asked quietly.

Looking over his shoulder and up, Sherlock said, "The woman in the pictures is a target, but not another spy. Her clothing choices suggest someone trying to blend-in with the masses. Asian, obviously, I suspect Chinese judging by her hairstyle and her shoes. He's been following her for quite some time, according to the timestamps on the photographs."

"So he's a spy?" John leaned his right shoulder against the wall. "One of yours?"

"No, probably Austro-Pacific. Unfortunately, I think we may have to call in one of Mycroft's clean-up crews to deal with this. Spies are annoying good at hiding things in odd places." Sherlock grabbed the safe and tugged it experimentally. "Heavy, but not bolted down. He hasn't been here long enough to fully establish a temporary base of operations, or Mycroft's people would be here instead of Lestrade. Help me pull the safe out."

"Sherlock, we can't both be in the closet."

Lestrade's voice drifted over from behind them, "Crime scene's no place to come out of it, John."

Donovan snorted a laugh just as Anderson groaned, "Don't quit your day job, Lestrade."

John's pupils glittered as he rolled his eyes in the dark, and said sarcastically, "Oh no, I've let the cat out of the bag. You've finally solved the mystery that is me. Whatever will I do now?" To Sherlock, who looked extremely confused and slightly uncomfortable, he said, "Why don't we just open it?"

"It's an electronic lock, and I can't see in the dark." Sherlock snapped.

"So move." John slipped a hand into his pocket and leaned out of the doorway.

Snorting, Sherlock shook his head, "Is safe cracking part of your repertoire now?"

"Just get out of the way, Señor Snarkypants."

"You know, it continues to amaze me that you can speak words in other languages with an exceptional accent," Sherlock grumbled as he loomed over the doctor and stepped out of the closet, "and yet you insist on butchering your native tongue."

"I'm just a multi-talented guy," John spat back, crouching down in front of the safe.

Moving back into the room-at-large, Sherlock leaned back against the wall beside Lestrade. "You should contact Mycroft as soon as possible. I'm sure he'll be thrilled to know."

"Already done." The Marshal shoved his hands into his pockets. "Any idea where his head might've got to?"

"Yeah, freak, do tell us since you've got all the answers," Anderson mumbled.

"Don't talk, Anderson, you're stupidity will give everyone a headache," the consultant retorted.

"I've got a headache," Sally Donovan chimed, "but it isn't Anderson's doing."

"Uhh, guys?" John's voice floated out from the wardrobe.

Sherlock sighed and decided to ignore the other people in the room, "The killer could have kept it as a trophy, but more likely it is either being displayed somewhere that no one has found yet, or being shipped back to our dead man's employer."

"Seriously," Donovan asked, "How do you think this stuff up?"

"He's a psychopath, Sally," Anderson said matter-of-factly.

"Guys?" John asked, slightly louder than before.

Lestrade glanced over to the closet, but didn't move, "Donovan, Anderson, both of you get back to work." He glared at them until they obeyed. Turning back to Sherlock he said, "So our killer is probably a rival spy?"

Sherlock answered, "Or the person being spied upon."

"Oh please," Anderson moaned as Donovan rolled her eyes and sighed, "Here we go."

"Hey!" John's shout made everyone in the room jump and fall silent. "I found his head."

Exchanging a look, confused on Lestrade's part and elated on Sherlock's, both men finally moved to glance over the doctor's shoulders. There, in the safe, sat the victim's head, mouth open and glassy eyes half-lidded. There was a note stuck to the forehead by what seemed to be an acupuncture needle that read 'Your move, Mr Holmes'.

It was Sherlock who broke the silence, "It's like Christmas came early this year."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the animals Sherlock has listed for John's genetic manipulations -
> 
> Haliaeetus leucocephalus - Bald Eagle
> 
> Lynx rufus - American Lynx
> 
> Electrophorus electricus - Electric eel
> 
> Puma concolor couguar - American Puma aka Cougar aka Mountain Lion
> 
> Canis lupus - Wolf
> 
> Equus ferus caballus - Wild Horse
> 
> Heloderma suspectum - Gila monster
> 
> Crocodylus acutus - Crocodile
> 
> Menura novaehollandiae - Lyrebird


	7. Chess is a Battle...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a terrible person, and I am so sorry that this has taken me so long to post. I had a bit of a rough time these past few weeks, but hopefully it's all over now and I can get back to plying you all for your love by continuing my fic. I really wish I was a better author for you all. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing and following and all that good stuff. I've missed you.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, or any of the characters herein. I bow before the talented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss, and Steven Moffat for the privilege of borrowing their characters for a bit of fun. Thank you, gentlemen, for sharing them with the world.

Their dead man was named Justin Montemorency, and he was indeed an Austro-Pacific spy who had only entered the country a month ago. According to the notes Mycroft's efficient cleaners had managed to scrounge up from beneath the victim's shoddy kitchen sink, Justin's target was the head of a Ru-Asian smuggling operation. What she was smuggling remained a mystery, though Sherlock suspected it was either drugs or weapons.

At first, Sherlock had set up shop in one of the conference rooms in the Headquarters of the Provosts. He spread out his own notes and those of the spy, the crime scene photos, and the preliminary autopsy report on the table, then proceeded to rearrange them to his liking. John sat in the corner of the room, out of the way, and jotted down notes whenever Sherlock spoke aloud.

When Mycroft's personal assistant and 2 more lackeys arrived, Sherlock ranted for half an hour as they packed everything away again. They admonished the detective for 'sticking his nose in where it didn't belong' and explained that they would take it from there. John shook his head and snagged the consultant by the elbow before it could come to blows, apologized to the assistant as his charge seethed beside him, then led Sherlock out to his car as swiftly as possible.

Outside, Sherlock opened his mouth to argue, but John cut him off with a sharp squeeze to his upper arm. Through clenched teeth, John hissed, "I took pictures of all the documents and have copies of the crime scene photos. Also, the morgue girl, what's-her-name, Molly, agreed to email the reports to me when the morgue finishes up. You can set everything up how you like it back at Baker Street."

Smiling, Sherlock jumped into John's car and slammed the door shut. "I cannot decide if you are devious, or just ingenious."

"Neither," John smiled back, "I just like to be prepared for all contingencies."

When they returned to the flat, Sherlock took the skull from the mantle and placed it onto the bookshelf with a friendly pat. Then, he shoved everything else from the mantle unceremoniously onto the floor. John, who was parked in a chair at the desk, sighed in weary acceptance of his charge's eccentricities and returned to pecking at his datalet screen.

"Honestly, John," Sherlock reprimanded, "is it that difficult to type out a simple message to Lestrade asking him to send over some files?" He took the mirror off the wall and leaned it against the wall separating the living room from the kitchen.

"I'm still texting Molly. She just sent me the final autopsy reports and the tox screen results and I had a few questions for her."

"So you haven't even done it yet?" Sherlock all but appeared over his defender's shoulder, looking down at the open chat log on the screen. "What are you waiting for?"

John did not dignify that with an answer. He continued to slowly tap his stylus against the keyboard on the screen as Sherlock vibrated next to him. Finally, the detective shouted, "Use your bloody fingers, for God's sake man, my arthritic grandmother writes faster than this!"

"Is your grandmother dyslexic?" John's voice was weary with a tinge of anger beneath it.

"I beg your pardon?"

Slowly placing the stylus down, John folded his hands together and rested them on the desktop as he stared at the fireplace. Sherlock could see the tension in John's shoulders which declared the doctor was trying very hard to control his temper. John's voice was calm in the deadly way of an ocean just before a storm, "I have dyslexia. It's apparently an unfortunate side effect of having your genes scrambled. Besides speaking, anything that has to do with words, such as reading and typing, is a challenge for me. If the damn files you want are so important, how about you ask for them yourself?"

Shame and intrigue flooded Sherlock in equal parts, which was a first for him. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that John was not like other people, for all he looked completely human. Sherlock had not thought there were any 'unfortunate side effects' from the manipulations that made John's genetics so unique; he was even eager to learn what other things John might consider as such.

When no word from Sherlock was forthcoming, John lifted his stylus again and continued tapping away. The files weren't important, exactly, but it always helped to have information on hand, so Sherlock used his own datalet to send the message to Lestrade. As he hit 'Send' he noticed John looking at him. A slow half smile graced John's face and he nodded in friendly approval before returning to his pecking.

Sherlock assumed all had been forgiven, which predisposed him to feeling positively cheery when John hooked up a printer to his datalet and pictures and files flowed freely onto the loaded paper. Each sheet of data was carefully tacked and re-tacked to the wall above the mantle, and Sherlock stretched pieces of different coloured strings around each pin. Once everything had been meticulously mapped out, Sherlock had a fair looking web collage spread out on the wallpaper.

"I can't tell if you're thorough or an artist," John cocked his head to the side as he peered at the masterpiece.

"Both," Sherlock retorted smugly. "Attend, please."

Both men stared at each other, until Sherlock meaningfully tilted his head in the direction of the armchair that had become 'John's'. Swiping up his datalet, John shook his head with a little smile and sat down attentively, stylus poised above the screen. Sherlock settled himself with his feet shoulder-width apart, hands clasped behind his back like an old school master.

"Our victim Justin is a spy for the Austro-Pacific Coalition. He trying to suss out the leader of a smuggling operation run by a Ru-Asian woman code-named 'the General'. He's been following this woman," Sherlock pointed to the Chinese woman that the victim had been talking pictures of, "for approximately four months. Her name is Soo lin Yao and she is not the General."

John's brow wrinkled in confusion and he opened his mouth to ask a question. Sherlock waved his hand dismissively, "Don't interrupt, John, or we'll be here all night. I have deduced her occupation from his notes and my own observations. She is an antiques appraiser for the local pawn shop known as the Lucky Golden Cat, above which she maintains a small apartment. But, what is her connection to the General, you ask?"

With a swirl of his dressing gown, Sherlock darted over to the coffee table and returned with the local paper, which he dropped into John's lap with a flourish. "There has been a recent increase in the appearance of artwork from a specific dynastic era popping up in different pawn shops all over Chinatown, all brought in by the same three Englishmen, all of which requested Ms Yao be called in to verify the age of the antiquities. Every piece was labelled a fake, and consequently confiscated by the same local Provost."

Skimming over the article, John ventured, "You think Ms Yao and the Provost are part of the smuggling ring?"

"Indeed," Sherlock awarded his Defender with a pleased smile. "In addition, I believe that Ms Yao is the General's contact and not the Provost."

"Why's that?"

"Simple. Mycroft."

"He told you?"

Sighing in exasperation, Sherlock dragged his hands through his hair. "Of course not! He is the last word in who is appointed a position in the Provosts, and the thoroughness of his background investigations are legendary. Several nations have tried, unsuccessfully I might add, to infiltrate my brother's organization, and all have failed in their attempts. It helps that he has a second security team used to spy on his workers in secret." Smirking, he looked at John side-long, "If you still don't believe me, perhaps I should show you the very in-depth file he has on you, as well as video-footage."

"Oh yeah, because I really needed something to feel paranoid about." John rolled his eyes. "I'll just take your word for it."

"Good." Sherlock smiled and strode towards his bedroom. "Go put on a warm jacket. We have an apartment to break into."

"Whoa, whoa, wait, what?"

* * *

John parked his car half a block from the Lucky Golden Cat, sighing as Sherlock practically leapt out onto the pavement. "Remind me again why we're here?"

"Honestly, John," Sherlock moaned in vexation. "Do you even have a brain in your skull? Is it made of grey matter, or molasses?" The glare with which Sherlock was graced would have knocked a lesser man to his knees. Sighing, the consultant started off in the direction of the shop. "Ms Yao is the General's contact, when the faux pieces are brought into the pawn shops, it is she who ultimately collects them after the Provost has written his report. Either Ms Yao is blackmailing the Provost, or the General is holding something over his head. I suspect it is Ms Yao, but find myself without solid proof either way. We've come to collect it."

"I still don't understand why we don't contact Lestrade."

"Because Ms Yao's pocket Provost is bound to hear about it, and if the General is the one who is blackmailing him then she will probably eliminate," Sherlock paused in his tirade and held out an arm to block John's advancement.

Standing in the doorway to Soo lin Yao's apartment was one of the Englishmen Sherlock had suspected as a smuggler. The man was arguing quietly but adamantly with the historian herself, who appeared to be trying to slam the door in his face. After a long moment, in which the man seemed about to drop to his knees and beg, Soo lin reluctantly opened the door further and allowed him inside.

Plucking the front of John's coat in a wordless bid to be followed, Sherlock raced to the door only to have it click shut in his face. Stymied momentarily, the consultant flattened his ear against the door and listened. His face twisted in a silent snarl and, still without speaking, he reached back and yanked John's head against the door. John grunted in protest, but then went as utterly still as a hunting hound on alert.

Beneath his breath, John whispered decisively, "Someone's being choked."

"We have to get inside," Sherlock said tightly, glancing at the electronic door lock briefly before rocketing towards and into the nearby alleyway. He thought he heard John call out to him, but ignored it in favour of getting to the rear of the building as quickly as possible.

As he'd predicted, there was an old fire escape that would allow him access to the building. Using his height to it's full advantage, Sherlock leaped for the ladder and swarmed up, just as John's perturbed face leaned around the corner. He spared a moment to watch as the shorter doctor tried in vain to follow him, but couldn't reach the ladder. John disappeared again, probably heading back towards the front of the building.

Chuckling, Sherlock missed the window above him opening. He cursed his distraction mutely as someone hauled him unceremoniously over the sill and onto the (frankly ghastly) linoleum of Soo lin Yao's kitchen. Rolling, Sherlock managed to get his feet under him, but a booted foot introduced itself to his abdomen and forced the air from his lungs.

A soft feminine voice whispered rapidly in Chinese as Holmes' assaulter shoved a knee into his back. He wasn't sure if she was trying to convince the man to stop, or if she was egging him on. Judging by the body of the dead Englishmen bleeding onto her living room carpet, Sherlock had a feeling it was the latter.

His scarf, worn mostly to keep off the still-chilly spring air, unwrapped briefly, only to tighten again viciously and cut off his oxygen supply. Struggling, he could hear the distinct sound of John's quick steps up the front stairs, and he wanted to cry out a warning. As darkness crept over his vision, he could hear a deep baritone mumbling outside the door, just before John's foot broke open the flat door.

A deep baritone, clearly in the middle of mumbling a short tirade, floated in from the open door, "I'm Sherlock Holmes, and no one can compete with my massive," it choked off just as Sherlock passed out.

John Watson stood in the busted doorway, taking in the two surprised but angry looking Asian women standing over a dead Englishman, and a slim, equally surprised Asian man holding Sherlock Holmes dangling limply from his own scarf. Perfect – his charge was unconscious, he's out-numbered, and judging by the rapidly forming expressions of deadly purpose overcoming the faces of one of the women and the man, he's about to find himself in a world of trouble that he was not mentally prepared for. The woman who is not Soo lin pulled a gun from the small of her back, and the man dropped Sherlock to the floor like a sack of rice.

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr Holmes," not-Soo lin purred in an oily, accented voice. "We've been expecting you."

Wearily, John sighed and raised his hands to shoulder level. In a borrowed voice, he drawled lazily, "The General, I presume?"

* * *

You know it's going to be a bad night when you wake up on the floor of an unknown flat with your throat feeling extremely raw, and seven highly trained members of your brother's secret security SWAT team with rifles standing around and staring dumbly down at you. Sherlock Holmes was having just that sort of night. It was made even worse by the way they trussed him up like a bloody Christmas Goose and tossed him in the back of their van. Instead of tracking the truck's movements (they're taking him straight to Mycroft, obviously), he spent the drive going back over the events that occurred before he passed out and wondered what on Earth happened to his Defender.

They dumped their burden in a chair in Mycroft's posh office, where the Head of English Defense was just finishing sipping his evening cup of tea from one of Mummy's ancient bone-china teacups. Instead of having them unbind his furiously wriggling sibling, Mycroft waved an imperious hand and shooed the men out of the room. In the dry tones he reserved only for when he was absolutely infuriated, he asked, "What kind of game exactly do you think you are playing at, Sherlock?"

"I have no idea to what you are referring, brother dear," Sherlock grunted in between trying to wiggle his way out of the cords around him. "I assure you, the only game I was included in today was entitled 'how to be strangled into unconsciousness' and I apparently lost."

Carefully, Mycroft set the teacup on its tray and poked a button on his datalet. A recording hissed out of the speakers:

**_Good evening, Mr Mycroft Holmes._ ** _(A woman's voice, accented, Asian dialect - probably Chinese.) **You probably already know who I am, and what I am capable of, so I will skip over any pleasantries.** **You will send one quarter of a million dollars to me for the loss of my financial backer, and transfer to me all the information you have in regards to myself or my organization.** **If you do not conform to this demand, I will kill Sherlock Holmes. To prove that I have him in my possession...**_

_(There was a bit of a shuffling noise, and what sounded like someone removing a gag from someone else's mouth. The phone seemed to be passed along, and someone grumbled into the mouthpiece.)  
_

**_Really? Cue cards? Do you people all get your ideas from the same criminal mastermind magazine or something?_ ** _(The tone of the voice is equal parts droll and mocking. It is unmistakably Sherlock's voice, and the younger Holmes' brows rose almost as high as his mouth lowered with the shock of it.) **Subscribe to the same journal or something do you? Some sort of smuggler's garden club, perhaps?**  (Someone struck the voice's owner with heavy fist, and the voice grunted but didn't show any other sign of discomfort.)  **Fine, fine. Ahem. Send one quarter of a million dollars to the following account number: One. Zero. Zero. Six. Five. What the hell is that? A four?**  (The first voice hissed in the background for the new voice to hurry up.)  **You have a choice, madam. Either I can continue to read the numbers at a reasonable speed, or I can read it so fast whoever copies it down gets it wrong. Personally, I would rather the former, for the latter implies that I might be construed as 'wrong' and I. Am. Never. Wrong. Also, I require you have someone with legible script re-write that mess you call an account number.** (Even the snappishness is Sherlock's, everything right down to the inflections. Sherlock was so shaken by it, he almost believed that he really was the one in the playback.)  **Honestly, General, my grandmother could write better, and she is**   **arthritic!**_

"After that," Mycroft said as he stopped the recording with barely controlled violence, "it degenerates back into the sounds of someone being beaten rather thoroughly and the General finally just reading off the number herself." He tapped his fingers on the edge of his desk, then opened his mouth to speak again until he got a good look at his brother's face.

Sherlock's milk pale skin has turned the greyish tint of dusty paper, and the grip he had on his own hands had turned his knuckles bone-white. There were no signs of a beating on his younger brother's face, and he did not seem to be holding himself in the manner of an injured person. Only Sherlock's vermilion eyes moved, darting back and forth at a hundred kilometers an hour as if he were reading a fast-scrolling document.

"Sherlock? What is it?"

"That's not me, Mycroft."

"I know that now, since I see you bare no marks from a beating. However, according to my analyst, that voice belongs to you, and no voice modulator could possibly replicate it so thoroughly. Even the cadence is yours. He even knew about our grandmother's arthritis."

"Elderly people are often arthritic, Mycroft, it's not that much of a," Sherlock paused in the midst of his sentence as a thought intruded. Mycroft could nearly see the cogs whirring faster and faster as his brother's vermilion eyes darted back and forth in their sockets without seeing. Suddenly Sherlock's face snapped up like he'd been slapped. "John."

"We don't know where John is."

"Yes we do," Sherlock was up in a second, shedding the ropes still draped around him as if he were Houdini himself. "You just heard him. That's what all the prevarication was. John is dyslexic, he probably couldn't read the numbers any faster because he has to really focus on them. That was what speaking of our grandmother was about. I said something similar to him this morning." Sherlock leaned menacingly over the edge of Mycroft's desk. "Perhaps you've forgotten, brother dear, that John is part Lyrebird? The greatest of mimics of the animal kingdom. I've heard John snarl like a jungle cat, and he can speak foreign languages with the accent of a native."

"So, what, they mistook John for you? How?"

"Jefferson Hope." When all Sherlock received for his brilliant answer was a confused look, he threw his hands in the air, "Think will you? Her financial backer? Hope had a backer too, someone willing to pay him to murder people. What's to say the same backer had been paying to help the General smuggle whatever it is she smuggles. If they have the same backer, and Hope managed to record my voice somehow?"

Mycroft conceded the point with an incline of his head. "But John's speech patterns and yours are very different."

"True, but the last thing I remember before blacking out is my own voice mocking me just before Soo lin Yao's apartment door burst open."

"If John was mimicking you at the time," the elder Holmes nodded and pursed his lips in unhappiness. "So they capture John by mistake, which gives us one up on them as I'm sure Dr Watson will turn out to be a very dangerous guest. If they took him to one of their secret hideaways, then we might catch a chance at killing two birds with one stone.

"So you're not averse to a rescue mission?"

"Of course not, Sherlock. Dr Watson is the first person I have ever met who not only intrigues you but is also not afraid of you. I will give you four of my best men, and Provost Marshal Lestrade if need be." Mycroft's smile was just a little less frightening than that of a crocodile. "Make sure the General at least is taken alive. I wish to have a chat with her."

"For once, Mycroft, I think we may actually be in accord."


	8. ...Go is the War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm so sorry I've been out of touch. Ran into some more of that RL trouble. Here's part one of my apology. Beware of John's potty mouth this chapter.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, or any of the characters herein. I bow before the talented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss, and Steven Moffat for the privilege of borrowing their characters for a bit of fun. Thank you, gentlemen, for sharing them with the world.

John Watson let out a bone-weary sigh and tried to figure out exactly what the hell he must have done wrong in a past life to make the current one so spectacularly fucked up. He lay on the floor of a long-abandoned building, hands cuffed behind him, riddled with the evidence of his recent beating. His captors believed him to be Sherlock Holmes, which was his own damn fault, and would probably soon deep six him considering that they'd had twelve hours in which to discover their error.

Oddly enough, being a hostage was not a new experience for John, nor were beatings or the unspoken threat of torture and death. At least the setting was something obligingly horrifying – it seemed to be an old slaughterhouse, complete with heavy hooks dangling from chains bolted to the ceiling and ancient, mottled-red stains in the floor, all accompanied by the foetid smell of old death. It was a welcome difference to damp caves and scorching desert heat, but that didn't mean he wanted it to be the last place he ever saw.

Shaking off his momentary jaunt down self-pity boulevard, John took a moment to breathe. 'Keep calm,' the words of his survival training instructor drifted out of his memory, 'Nothing turns a situation FUBAR faster than a panic attack.' Stuffing his maudlin mood back into its own little box, he began to take stock of his body's injuries and his assets.

The major complaints of his physical state were the extensive and tender bruising to his left side abdominal muscles, three bruised (possibly fractured) ribs on his right side, possible kidney damage, a strained right ankle, and numbness in his left arm and entire buttocks due to the cold and laying unmoving on that side for hours. It would all heal in time, which was a blessing, but of course it didn't change the fact that he would probably be killed by his captors long before that would happen. Moving was going to hurt like hell.

As for assets, he had precious little, and all of it hinged on his physical endurance. They'd taken his coat, which meant he had no access to the tube of gel that made it easier to give someone an effective jolt of electricity, so if he wanted to use that weapon, he was going to need to find a source of water or something else suitably conductive. They'd also taken his handgun, which was a pity, but not the worst obstacle to overcome. He still had a number of tricks up his sleeve, not the least of which was his talent for mimicry.

He had been listening hard to the way his captor's spoke, and he could probably manage to fool them for a short amount of time if he could get himself unbound. He didn't exactly understand what they were saying, but if he could confuse them, it could only help. It also helped that they were keeping him in an unlit room; they would have trouble telling who was speaking, but he would have no problem with his ability to see in the dark. First, though, he was going to have to figure out how to get himself out of his cuffs.

* * *

"It's opium."

Provost Marshal Lestrade leaned back in his desk chair to better look the looming Sherlock Holmes in the eye. One of Sherlock's large hands splayed itself on his desk, and in the other was an expensive looking vase that the Marshal was pretty sure should have been in the evidence locker downstairs. Tapping his stylus on the nearest edge of his desk, Lestrade asked, "What the hell are you talking about, Sherlock?"

"The vases have a false bottom, judging by the outside, the bottom of the inside is approximately two inches thicker than necessary for a piece of this size." The consultant smiled in a way that sent shivers up the spines of half the criminals in London, and cheerily smashed the vase on the desk.

Opening his mouth, half in shock and half in protest, Lestrade closed his lips again at the sight of over a dozen dime bags of a white, powdery substance. Groaning, he lifted a hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay, so the General person is smuggling opium into the country using fake Ming. Still doesn't really lead us to finding her."

"Wrong." Sherlock lifted a few seemingly random pieces of the broken china. "I examined three of these vases minutely and chemically and have found the porcelain itself has trace amounts of asbestos and chemicals that, taken as a grouping, create an acidic detergent commonly used in cleaning facilities which are soiled by animal proteins."

"What's that mean in English?"

Sherlock glared at him in a way that might have cut a lesser man, "It  _was_  in English."

"Yeah, but see, when you talk all arrogant and chemist-y like that, all I hear is this tiny little voice in my head telling me to punch you in the face."

The desk creaked ominously as Sherlock leaned his weight on it, and Lestrade fancied he could hear the sound of Sherlock's teeth making the same noise as the consultant ground them together. Through clenched teeth, Sherlock hissed, "It means, you ignorant excuse for a law enforcer, that the vases were made in a place which used to process meat and was built before the health restorations common after it was found that asbestos causes cancer. Mostly likely, they are working out of an abandoned slaughterhouse."

"See, if you had just said that in the first place," Lestrade mumbled as he began gathering up his badge and gun. "Right, let's get a team together and we'll drive over to the old factory district. There's got to be at least two slaughterhouses there. Probably more."

The Marshal stood up and marched into the main office, Sherlock close on his heels with a blank, almost vicious, determined look on his face. Without speaking, Lestrade pointed to Sergeant Donovan and two other officers, and then began walking down to the parking garage. Feet scrambled and voices murmured as a task force formed slowly and then began to file out of the office behind them.

Sherlock grimaced at the sight of the panda cars, but lowered himself into Lestrade's without voicing a complaint. That alone told the Provost Marshal just how affected the consultant was by his Defender's capture. The only other time Sherlock had ever entered a Provost vehicle of his own free will, he had been nearly frozen to death from falling in the Thames.

As the car pulled out into the waning daylight, Lestrade ventured, "You think they'll risk killing him?"

"Hard to tell," Sherlock said softly after a moment of thought. "Mark my words though, Lestrade, John will prove to be a most dangerous captive."

"Does other stuff besides see in the dark, does he?"

"Oh, yes." Sherlock smirked as Lestrade glanced at him sidelong. "John's genetic modifications are many, and I have yet to figure out exactly how much he is capable of, talent-wise. For example, his ability to mimic someone so fully is rather intriguing. I may have to experiment with it further."

"Somehow Sherlock," there was a smile in Lestrade's voice, "I don't think that's going to go over well with John."

* * *

Thinking back, as the haze of red pain cleared from his eyes, dislocating his shoulder had been an incredibly bad idea. Effective, since he could now wiggle his arms around his legs to bring his hands back to the front of his torso, but still a definitely bad idea. Breathing sharply in through his teeth, he thrust himself back against the concrete wall and listened as his breath left his lungs and his shoulder joint snapped back into place.

Biting back a moan, he waited out the wave of new pain, propping himself against the wall. He wondered, not for the first time, how long he had been locked up alone, but he wrote that thought off as unimportant. It didn't matter how long he'd been there, it just mattered how long it would take him to get out before his body was completely broke-dick.

Carefully, John levered himself off the ground and slowly made his way to the heavy steel door that closed him off from the rest of the building. Pressing a hand against the metal, he knew he wouldn't be able to hear anyone on the other side of it. It didn't help that the tiny window was just a little too far up for him to be able to see outside.

The door squealed mightily as someone on the other side began to open it. John froze for only a moment before hiding on the side with the heavy hinges, trapping him behind the door as several people entered the room. Leaning cautiously until one eye could see around the edge of the heavy door, John took stock of who had come to fetch him.

Three men, not much shorter than John himself, had entered the room, all holding handguns in the steady way of someone intimately familiar with their use. They moved further into the room, moving their heads in a way that suggested they were looking for him. The light from the door was strong enough to brighten the room, so John gave it a shove with his shoulder.

Moving as fast as his sprained ankle would allow, John darted away from the wall and dropped to one knee in the middle of the room as his captors spun around and began gabbling in agitation. Waiting quietly as they moved slowly back towards the door, John took stock of their positions, and body language. The man on the right was the steadiest, his gun hand and arm straight as an arrow.

John smirked, and moved towards his target as silent as death.

* * *

There were, in fact, seven slaughterhouses in the old district, placed at intervals like the points of a Star of David along with a central one in the middle. Lestrade groaned at the area they would have to cover, and gave Sherlock a pleading look. The consultant smirked at the Marshal, even though his eyes darted unseeingly as he went through deductions in his head.

"Predictable," he murmured sadly as the facts fell into place. "They'll be in the central building. The General is smart, but her idea of how to stave off attack is based on gang wars and territorial displays, not military strategy as her title suggests. She's prepared to face down law enforcers or rivals, but not someone as clever as me. Power-hungry local dictators are one thing, but they're more apt to rely on brute strength than mental prowess. Leave the cars here, we'll go on foot, it will be easier to sneak up on them."

Shooing his officers into a sweeping pattern, Lestrade fell into step beside the consultant. "You going to tell me why the central one?"

Sherlock hummed a moment, and the Marshal wasn't sure he would answer. After a few meters, the consultant stated, "It's location makes it easily defensible by a small force, which is easier to get into a country as well patrolled as ours than a large one, and at least half of them will be English-born. I would posit she has a force of about ten people, including herself. Sentries will be posted at all four corners of the uppermost floor to keep an eye on the surrounding area, there will be one person at both the front and rear exit, and any side doors will be boarded up or fortified accordingly. The General herself will be in one of the offices nearest wherever they're keeping John, and the last three are probably guarding their captive."

He fell silent as they slipped down an alleyway and their target building appeared in their view. After a few moments in which Lestrade messaged his subordinates to use caution and check in with him before making any movements closer to the building, Sherlock continued, "From what I know, they haven't discovered yet that their captive isn't who they believe him to be, so that at least will keep them from killing him out of hand. If we can infiltrate the building without alarming them, we should have no trouble finding John and apprehending them all without any injuries."

"So you've got some sort of plan or something then?"

"Of course I have a plan." Sherlock plucked at his lower lip and a smile slowly formed on his face. Lestrade could almost see the wheels turning in the consultant's head. With a flare of his dramatic coat, Sherlock turned to the alley-side door of the building on their right. "We'll go in through the roof."

* * *

As a man who had been held hostage, kidnapped, bombed repeatedly, and shot at more times than a shitter's been shat in, John was completely floored by how pathetically easy the fight was. Less than five minutes, and there's two enemies on the ground, a gun in his hand, and the last man is trembling before him, weapon discarded. He almost feels bad about it.

Sure, they might have been professional hired guns, but they were by no means prepared to deal with someone as well-trained in the art of ass-beating as a soldier. John's skills, drilled into him by the US Navy and Marine Corps, were as far above their pay grade as Mount Everest was above sea-level. John might have laughed if he wasn't so shocked.

"Are you going to kill me?" The criminal before him was visibly shaking.

"I though about it," John let his natural accent slip out in his genuine surprise that the whole situation hadn't gone completely tits up. He raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "I mean, if you guys ah seriously the best they've got, I'm fuckin' disappointed."

The other man's eyes widened, "W-what?"

"You're criminals for fuck's sake! That guy," John indicated one of the downed men, "just frickin' fainted! Jesus! I didn't even do anything!"

"We thought you were still unconscious! Besides, it was dark! And nobody told us you were trained in combat!"

"What the fucking," throwing up his hands in exasperation, John paced a few feet back and forth as adrenaline still pumped through his veins. "You're part of a smuggling ring, gawd-dammit! The least yah could do was put up a fight or somethin'!"

"Hey, mate, I don't do hand-to-hand, okay?" Waving his hands before his chest, the smuggler swallowed audibly. "I can't even win a slap fight with my sister!"

"Least you could do was try some fuckin' Tai chi, Bruce Lee shit!" John ran a hand through his mussed hair. "You kicked me in the shin like a fuckin' toddler!"

Brows wrinkling, the criminal crossed his arms over his chest. "What, because I'm Chinese I'm supposed to know martial arts? That's just messed up, mate."

John blinked at him, then levelled the gun back at the man's chest, "Did you just play the fuckin' race card with me?"

"Sorry! Sorry! Please, don't shoot me!" Holding his hands up like a terrified bank hostage, the man dropped to his knees and cringed with his eyes screwed shut.

Sighing deeply, John rolled his eyes and stepped within arms reach of the man, carefully tucking the gun in the back of his jeans. "I'm not gonna shoot you. It'd be like killing a freakin' kitten." They stared at each other for a long moment, then John asked cordially, "Can I have yah Quellwasser?"

A shaking hand held out the item in question, and John popped the top before spraying some on the man's neck. With swift purpose, John grasped the man's throat and pulsed a shock through his hand. The criminal went rigid as a hearty electric current raced through his body, then collapsed.

Doubling over as pain raced through his bruised abdominal muscles, John knew he wasn't going to be doing that again any time soon. He waited a long while for the pain to pass, then stood up straight again and limped over to pick the other two guns up off the floor. Tucking one (safety on) into the front of his jeans, and keeping the other at the ready, John slunk out the door and pulled it shut behind him.

* * *

The operation of going through the roof was much simpler than Sherlock had predicted. The nearby buildings were all so closely situated, that the Provosts only had to repel a short ten feet to the top of the slaughterhouse and enter the building through the rooftop door. It was a textbook infiltration, really, and Sherlock was almost disappointed with how easy it went.

None of the posted sentries even had a chance to even pull their guns from their trousers. Not even the second one, who got a warning in the sound of Sherlock's datalet pinging in the announcement of an incoming message. Holmes didn't even bother looking at his screen in retaliation for it almost alerting their quarry.

Lestrade split his force into three teams, one each of which was sent to collect the guards at the front and rear doors of the building. The last group, including Sherlock and Lestrade, made their way into the bowels of the structure, where Sherlock deduced that John was being kept in the room which had once been used for smoking meat. Finding three unconscious men, one of which was just rousing and one of which had a swelling arm with a completely mangled wrist, in the room and no John in sight was not in Sherlock's calculations.

Leaving four of his Provosts behind, Lestrade and Sherlock swept back into the hall and searched out the offices of the building. They went into three before looking into a random door window to find a very battered looking John Watson trussing up a woman they presumed to be the elusive General like a Christmas goose. At the door's opening, John spun around on one knee and aimed at the intruders.

John's chin and mouth were covered in drying blood, and he snarled like a starved wolf as he levelled his gun at the perceived threat he had spun to meet. Lestrade and Sherlock, who both stood in the doorway, held up their hands immediately with their eyes wide in shock. Sergeant Sally Donovan, who was looking over her superior's shoulder, let out a loud shriek of fright.

The snarl cut off as if it had never been when recognition flared in John's eyes and he lowered the weapon slowly to the ground. He cocked his bloody head to the side like a curious bird as he took in their expressions. Licking his lips, a look of surprise flashed over his face before it was overcome by a sheepish one.

Scratching the back of his neck, John asked demurely, "What, uh, what are you doing here?"

"Rescuing you," Sherlock said cautiously as he dropped his hands back into his pockets.

John's head tilted to the other side, "Oh."

Sherlock hummed in agreement.

Getting stiffly to his feet, face set in the stoic mask of a soldier in pain, John shuffled over to the side of the room, away from his prisoner. "Um," he bit his lower lip, "thanks?"

For a long moment, the consultant and his defender just looked at each other. John's lips began to twitch, and Lestrade could see the muscles in Sherlock's throat flutter. It was all the warning they got before both of them burst out laughing.

Shaking his head, the Marshal beckoned his team to move around the two lunatics he was forced to work with, and do their jobs. He looked over at the nutters when John yelped like a kicked puppy as his leg gave out, but that only seemed to make the two men laugh all the harder so he decided to ignore it for the moment. It wasn't until he began to call an ambulance, wondering where exactly John had been injured to make his face bloody like that when he remembered the man in the smoke room.

"John," Lestrade's voice was half a pitch higher than usual, "did you bite that man in the smoking room?"

Gasping and giggling, John visibly pulled himself back under control, his head lolling tiredly back to rest against the wall behind him. Nodding, the doctor took a few deep breaths before saying in a relatively calm manner, "Technically, I chewed on him. Also, you should tell the paramedics that he's suffering from a potentially crippling dose of neurotoxin."

"He's what?"

"I'm poisonous," John sighed deeply. "He needs fluids to help flush it out, or the toxin will basically cause his internal organs to haemorrhage."

At the frightened, confused look on the Marshal's face, Sherlock smiled and offered, "Not good, Lestrade. John's DNA includes that of a Gila monster, one of only two venomous lizards in the world. There's no anti-venom because the bite isn't usually fatal to humans, but if it spends too much time in his system the damage will be considerably worse."

"Of course you know that," John mumbled, his face graced with a lopsided smirk.

"Knowledge is power, John." Sherlock's smug smile clouded a bit as John hissed in pain. "Better make it two ambulances, Lestrade."

"Right. Just," Lestrade waved a hand at both of them, "keep your mouths shut at the hospital, okay?" He fixed John with a pointed gaze and finger, "That goes double for you." At Sherlock's chuckle, the Marshal poked the consultant in the arm, "And triple for you."

Sherlock frowned sourly, but John at least gave him a weary salute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a couple of notes here to clarify/define some of the terms that may be unfamiliar to anyone :) In regards to John's accent, just think of it like a mix between Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci.
> 
> Deep six - to dispose of something by throwing it overboard a ship. A Navy/Marine slang way of saying you're going to be killed.
> 
> FUBAR - an acronym for 'Fucked Up Beyond All Reason', Marine slang
> 
> Broke-dick - malfunctioning, usually used in regards to machinery or male genetalia, Navy/Marine slang
> 
> Above (their) pay grade - when you say something is 'above my/your pay grade' you're basically denying responsibility/authority, meaning someone should take the problem to a higher authority; Marine slang
> 
> Shitter - toilet, Navy/Marine slang
> 
> Quellwasser - a brand of bottled water


	9. Blast and Grab

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is taking so long! I started a new position at work, and the training has been wreaking havoc on my spare time and my sanity. Hopefully, I can have another chapter up for you in the near future. Thank you all for sticking with me this far, especially with the erratic way I've been updating.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, or any of the characters herein. I bow before the talented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss, and Steven Moffat for the privilege of borrowing their characters for a bit of fun. Thank you, gentlemen, for sharing them with the world.

Not many things can make Sherlock Holmes feel queasy. He deals with dead bodies on an almost daily basis, and he experiments on severed limbs and miscellaneous organs in the interest of scientific progress (read: because it's fun). He studies murder for God's sake, and had done so since he was little more than eight-years-old.

Observing John Watson, who was a captive for almost thirteen hours before he essentially saved himself, fill his empty stomach with nearly three pounds of dry-rub-spiced ribs was enough to make Holmes' iron stomach feel like it was on a bloody carnival ride. It was like watching one of those nature shows where David Attenborough remarks dryly on the prowess of a feeding hyena. John even went so far as to crack the leftover bones open to taste the marrow within.

Horrifying, but no less fascinating, was the way John utterly ignored anything else that Lestrade had kindly fetched for them to eat. He seemed so focused on getting as much protein into his body as he could, that he ignored the cooked pasta and vegetables completely. Sherlock wondered briefly if this sudden voracity had anything to do with the fact that, less than an hour previously, John had sunk his teeth into the wrist of another man and nearly chewed off a hand.

With only four ribs left, John seemed to realize he was being stared at by his charge, who was looking quite green with nausea. Swallowing his mouthful, the doctor ran his tongue along his sharp teeth in contemplation before blushing and daintily resting the bone in his hand on his plate. After a moment, the doctor said self-consciously, "Sorry. I get a little," he hesitated, "rapacious after a mission like, well, like what just happened. I'm not, umm, I'm not going to, y'know, try and," he blushed deeply and stopped speaking, turning his attention to poking the bone on his plate almost despondently.

"It isn't," Sherlock ventured in a soft, cautious voice, "because you tasted blood?"

"No!" John shook his head emphatically. "It's like a response to an overload of adrenaline. It makes me crave protein and iron." He smiled in a self-deprecating way, "I once ate four whole jars of peanut butter and two quarts of creamed spinach after my unit repelled an ambush attack outside of Kabul. Our chef vomited outside after the first jar."

The detective snorted, hiding his relief that John wasn't about to turn cannibal before his eyes. "I would think a combat-trained soldier wouldn't be so squeamish."

"Yes, well, training can't really prepare you for several people coming into the mess tent and digging into Skippy like it's the only food they've seen in months," John said as he speculatively eyed a plate of tofu and noodles. When Sherlock pushed the plate towards him, the doctor looked slightly taken aback. "Take what you want," John softly requested, pushing the plate back towards his charge. "You need to eat more than I do."

"I will content myself with the chicken and rice." Sherlock pushed the plate firmly back towards his Defender. "There is plenty of that, and I am not partial to the taste of sponge."

John chuckled and flashed him a bright, grateful smile. "Good thing I'll eat pretty much anything."

Putting down his empty plate, Sherlock put his chin in his hand and contemplated the man before him. Curiosity peaked, he asked, "Is there anything you can't eat?"

For a moment, the doctor chewed thoughtfully. He swallowed, a bit loudly, then said, "Not really. There's stuff I don't like the texture of, but I'm not allergic to anything."

"What about mould?"

Pointing his fork menacingly across the kitchen table, John growled, "Are you planning on trying to feed me carrion or poison? Experimenting on me?"

A tense silence filled the air, then Sherlock sighed deeply, "It's just for the purposes of scientific enquiry, John."

John put down his fork slowly, and fixed Sherlock with a stern glare, "If you even think of trying to feed me something potentially deadly, I will smother you in your sleep."

"As you wish," Sherlock smiled crookedly, already plotting various ways in which he might slip something into John's daily food intake to undermine that threat.

The way John's eyes narrowed gave Sherlock the impression that the doctor did not, in fact, believe for one minute that the consultant had actually let the subject drop. Instead of speaking any further, though, John opted to start shovelling tofu and noodles into his mouth. The sight of that was even worse than when he had demolished the ribs. Sherlock kept his mouth shut and turned his eyes back to his own plate, trying to fight off another bout of nausea.

* * *

As the spring continued to roll on through the city, a string of unnecessarily wet weather turned London into little more than shades of grey. Fog turned into showers, which became loud thunderstorms or miniature deluges, and the criminal population seemed to have hunkered down to avoid getting soaked. Sherlock couldn't decide if he was utterly bored with the lack of mysteries, or if he was thankful to have empty hours which he could fill with various experiments.

John seemed to take the inclement weather with the same amount of calm as he did his charge's stormy moods. Once his ankle healed from his ordeal, he returned to his morning jogs, regardless of the amount of precipitation falling from the heavens. The only sign that he was bothered a bit by the English damp was the appearance of a tube of heat liniment on the top of the toilet tank, which was applied liberally to his left shoulder almost every morning.

It was hatefully peaceful, in Sherlock's opinion, for about two weeks. In that time, the consultant solved eight cold cases, twelve house burglaries (completed by four different people), four art thefts, a car theft, two drug-related murders of little import, and a dog-napping. The only crime of note was the discovery of a dead smuggler in a car boot in Doncaster, but Sherlock solved it in a single day after realizing that the only person capable of getting through the paranoid victim's security measures was his butler.

The real surprise was the sudden, horrifying arrival of John's nightmares. Sometimes Sherlock was hard pressed to remember that there was a man living in the upstairs bedroom and not a bloody howler monkey. Granted, the sounds were of short duration, but that didn't stop them from being sickeningly petrifying. The consultant never saw John after he woke from the traumatic terrors that haunted his REM sleep stage, but he could hear the man pacing the room upstairs for hours after the sounds had quieted.

At first, Sherlock was alarmed by the nightmares that drove the Defender from his comfortable bed. But after two weeks, he was just as tired of them as John seemed to be. The doctor was visibly exhausted, with dark circles beneath his eyes and the lines of his expressive face deepened to make him look years older than his actual age. It would do neither of them any good if the dreams continued, for if the doctor was too tired to keep up with his charge, they could both rapidly find themselves in a bad spot.

One night, as Sherlock sat in the darkness of the living room, listening to the thundering storm directly overhead, John yelped upstairs and began to whimper like a beaten puppy. Clinging to the last of his nerves, Sherlock thumped his head against the back of the sofa as he fought not to race up the stairs and just shake the man awake. It would serve him right for intruding on Sherlock's peace.

Not that he wasn't sympathetic in a way; Sherlock knew John had done and seen enough in life to feed the nightmares of a dozen men. But for the love of all that was scientific, Sherlock could not figure out why the man had yet to get over it. Couldn't he just take a damn sleeping pill and get through a full night's sleep?

The pathetic whimpers gave way to furious snarls as the thunder outside began to fade. Somewhere outside in the city there was a low whumpf of sound and the ringing of car alarms, and the snarls turned into a sharp screech that must have startled John into wakefulness. There was an almighty thud from the ceiling, and Sherlock snickered to himself as he realized the doctor had fallen out of bed.

To the consultant's surprise, John came crashing down the stairs a moment later, the whites around his eyes just as visible as the glow of his pupils. The doctor's nostrils flared as a flicker of lightning threw his face into sharp relief. He darted to the windows as another loud concussion of noise came from far nearer than the last, and when John became visible in the light from the street lamps, Sherlock realized the man was trembling.

Rising slowly, wary of startling his Defender, Sherlock moved towards the windows until he was standing directly behind the doctor. John was breathing very rapidly, almost panting, and his whole body seemed tensed tighter than a bow string. Taking in the man before him, Sherlock's eyes caught on John's left shoulder, which was visible for the first time around the edge of the tank top John wore to bed.

Barely visible in the darkness, Sherlock could make out the shimmery shadow of an unmistakeable entrance wound at the back of John's shoulder. The bullet would have gone clean through his scapula, and his knowledge of anatomy told the consultant that it had nearly pierced through John's heart. Taking careful hold of the doctor's hard-muscled arm, Sherlock gently tugged until the mangled exit wound on the other side was in harsh relief.

That explained why John needed the heat liniment; the wound probably ached something fearful from the damp, chill weather. It was nothing short of shocking that John had as much mobility as he did. Sherlock could make out the edges of skin grafts and the signs that the wound had been badly infected at some point.

John perked up suddenly, his muscles going impossibly tighter as he stared at the building across the street. Turning around swiftly, he tackled Sherlock to the floor seconds before the windows of the flat shattered from the shock wave, caused by the explosion of a building across the street. Shards of glass and splinters of wood scored the consultant's arms and feet, and John hissed in pain above him where he was in the process of protecting his charge's face.

"Are you all right?" John snarled, his voice barely audible above the high-pitched whine brought on by the sound of the blast. "Holmes! Are you all right?"

"I will be once you get the bloody hell off me!" Sherlock shoved ineffectually at the man on top of him. It was like trying to move an anvil. "You weigh a bloody tonne and a half!"

Stiffly, and with much flinching, John managed to lift himself up, manoeuvring carefully as he took in the damage around him. "Don't try to get up, if you can help it. You're not wearing shoes, and there's shit everywhere."

Sherlock reined in his long limbs and rested his chin on his knees, an impish grin overtaking his face. At the startled look his Defender gave him, he said, "Finally, something interesting is going on!"

John's impressive eye-roll was followed by the loud crash of a door being broken down on the ground floor. A large group of men, all dressed in the black riot-gear uniforms of Mycroft's elite Homefront Guards, pounded up the stairs of the Baker Street flat. Guns held at the ready, they crushed already broken bits of wood beneath their heavy boots as they raced to the window, circling around Sherlock like a swarm of insects.

Shaking himself like a wet dog, John knocked debris from his hair and clothes before rising to his feet with a grunt. He rocked his head on his neck, in a way Sherlock had become familiar with as the doctor's 'let's do this' gesture of readiness. A rigid finger was pointed at a Guard with the concentric rings denoting a Lieutenant's rank, and John barked, "You! Tell me what the fuck is going on!"

"Three buildings in London have been destroyed by bombs, sir," the surprised man rattled off. "Mr Holmes received a video message just before the last, which indicated strongly that Master Holmes was the intended target of terrorist activity. We have been sent here to bring yourself and Master Holmes to a secure safe house."

"As opposed to an insecure one?" John snapped, his eyes tracing the floor before alighting on the coffee table. He flipped the table decisively onto its top, then shoved Sherlock onto the underside of it. "Drag'em to the stairwell on that, he's not wearing shoes. I assume you have transport for us?"

"Yes, sir, waiting downstairs, sir."

In lieu of answer, John grunted and gave the table a shove with his foot. Sherlock lurched and grabbed on of the table legs before he fell over. Smirking as one of the Guards dragged him onwards, he tossed to John, "This is going to make merry hell with the floorboards."

"Floors are replaceable, your feet aren't." The ghost of a smirk played over John's mouth. "The only 'merry hell' this is going to bring is when Mrs Hudson finds out about the damage."

Slightly sobered, Sherlock hummed in agreement. "It's probably best someone warns her to stay at her sister's until this is cleared up."

John glared at the lieutenant, who had reached an arm up to steady Sherlock as he stepped off the up-turned table. The Guard bobbed his head in understanding, "I will see to it personally, sir."

"Damn right." The doctor turned away to peer out the window, his pupils pinioning as he tried to see through the wisps of smoke in the air. His ear twitched briefly as he listened to the Guards escorting Sherlock down the stairs.

"Sir," the last guard asked tentatively, "shall we go?"

Sighing, John turned around to find the table again to use it himself, when a sharp pain in his neck flared. Lashing out at the man beside him, who danced out of the way, John lurched as the world spun like a top. Light glinted off the syringe in the Guard's hand.

"Balls," John rasped angrily, just as the world sank into darkness.

* * *

Inside the transport van, Sherlock watched the street flow by and felt a twinge of unease crawl up his spine. Why would John stay behind, he wondered, instead of going with his charge to the safe house. John was loyal to a fault, and it seemed a bit neglectful of him to send his duty off to safety without being their to check over the parameters and security of the safe house himself.

Turning his eyes to focus on the young Guard who had relayed the news to the Lieutenant, Sherlock raked his gaze over the man and let the deductions flow through his sharp mind:

_Nails - short, neat, professionally manicured - calluses on his palms indicative of knife use, not gun use._

_Stance is fluid - moves as if through water - dance training?_

_Other soldiers not easy in his presence, they set him apart but not because of fear. Unfamiliarity?_

_Holds a handgun as if unfamiliar with it. Continually stroking the hilt of the blade in his boot - nervous tick or habit?_

_Knife has seen use, boot sheath is well-made, worn, and well cared for. Hilt is mock leather - sweat will not make it difficult to hold on to - and worn to owner's grip._

_Is that a needle in his pocket?_

_ASSASSIN? SPY?_

"Lieutenant," Sherlock kept his voice low and unconcerned, "you should take this man into custody. He's not one of your usual men, and it's not because he's from another unit like he probably told you he was. He's a spy, or perhaps a trained assassin, and I'm of a mind to believe that the needle in his pocket contains some trace evidence of a powerful sedative. John didn't join us because he's been kidnapped. Again."

The way the other soldiers immediately trained their weapons on the man was gratifying. The spy hissed in protest as they stripped him of all the weapons they could find, and one of them bagged the syringe in a plastic bag. The needle was handed over to Sherlock without hesitation, and the consultant pocketed it in his dressing gown. Trussing the traitor up with zip ties, the soldiers dumped him off his seat and onto the floor.

Fingering the evidence in his pocket, Sherlock stated, "Forget the safe house, it's probably compromised. Take me to Mycroft's office instead, and when we get there be sure to send someone to bring me some actual clothing and shoes." A slow, chilling smile spread over his face. "John's going to be angry enough at having been kidnapped again. I'd hate to see how livid he would be if he found out I saved him in my pajamas."


	10. UPDATE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is an apology.

I am so very very sorry for how long it has been taking me to update this fic. I've been working hard on rewriting it, and trying to incorporate all the material into a new version. I will be posting the first chapter of the rewrite very shortly. It is available here, and on FF.net. The original draft will be available here for a limited time, but it will remain available for reading on FF.net until I manage to get the rest of my proverbial ducks in a row. I want to make sure I get everything I had in the original into this new version. I hope you forgive me for taking so long, and I hope the new rewrite at least restores me to your good graces a bit. Thank you all so much for sticking with me, even through all this. 

Thank you for reading.

Sincerely - The Mother of Monsters


End file.
